The Forgotten Romance
by Nogre
Summary: In the telling of the epic stories of our time, some things are always lost. Especially when such things aren't well accepted by society. This is the untold story about Isaac and Ivan within Golden Sun. M for potential later chapters. Yaoi/Slash.
1. The Advice

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Advice

Night begun to fall as Isaac and Garet reached the foothills of the Goma Mountain Range. The two were exhausted, having battled their way from Vault in a single day, but they both understood the urgency of their quest, so they both had pushed on past their comfortable limits.

The night was completely black due to the combined efforts of a new moon and a cloudy sky. Isaac knew they would have to stop soon, both from exhaustion and darkness, but didn't want to be the one to suggest it.

He was saved the trouble by a curse from ahead of him. Using the sound as a reference, he found Garet lying on the ground.

"Tripped on a root," Garet explained as Isaac helped him up.

"Look, it's simply too dark too see," Isaac sighed. "This place is as good as any to make camp, so let's stop for tonight."

"I'll light the fire for tonight's watch," Garet offered. Isaac merely nodded, too exhausted to talk. The two gathered all the firewood they could find, given the darkness of the night, and Garet built the fire. Isaac watched dazedly as Garet tended the fire to make sure that the blaze would last the night. When satisfied, Garet laid out his bedroll near the fire and fell asleep almost immediately, leaving Isaac alone in the night.

Knowing he had first watch, Isaac chose a spot near a tree so he could sit against it for his turn. After making sure his weapon was within arm's reach, he leaned back against the tree and got comfortable for the first few hours of the night.

It wasn't long before Isaac's mind was once more on the thing that had dominated his thoughts nearly all day. The young adept he and Garet had meet back in Vault.

~o~

Garet led the way into the Mayor's house as the two looked for a way to help them get through the mountains, and in particular to find this strange Ivan they had heard about while in the village. A young boy at the back of the house caught Isaac's attention. Even as Garet spoke to the mayor, Isaac stared at a young blonde with his back to the two adepts. Somehow he knew that this must be Ivan.

His cheeks reddened slightly as his eyes wandered down the blonde's beautiful frame. Quickly squashing those thoughts, he tugged on Garet's sleeve and walked towards the robed youth, who simply had to be the Ivan they had heard about. Isaac felt strangely drawn to him, for reasons beyond the more obvious.

As they walked up, Ivan turned to meet them. Isaac looked into the astounding violet eyes and suppressed a gasp. They were more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. And he knew then that he would never forget them. Isaac couldn't help but wonder what kind of strange powers such a person could have. Before either could say a word, Isaac noticed Ivan unleash what could be nothing but some form of Psynergy. After a pause, Ivan spoke, and to Isaac, it was the voice of an angel.

"Yes. I…I do possess strange powers," Ivan said, answering the unasked question. Isaac noticed more Psynergy.

"You have them too, don't you?" he asked, seeming to already know the answer. More Psynergy.

"What? My power… It's called Psynergy? I had no idea!" he continued, still seeming to need no more than his half of the conversation.

Dazed, Isaac and Garet could do nothing more than nod. Thinking that Ivan must be reading his mind, he also quickly pushed his earlier thoughts even farther back into his mind. Ivan then proceeded to confide in them about his troubles with his master's rod, and Isaac couldn't help but say yes to his request for help…

~o~

_And the rest is history,_ Isaac thought, sighing. _Ivan is off to Lunpa to save Hammet, and I'm continuing on my journey to stop Menardi and Saturos._

Isaac closed his eyes, instantly summoning the image of Ivan he had burned into his mind.

"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" a small voice asked with a yawn.

Isaac started, then, realizing who had spoken, turned to the small creature that had appeared on his shoulder. It was a light brown color, had large ears, small feet, a few spike-like appendages where arms would have been, and a tail that split at the end. It was a Venus Djinni. It rocked slowly back and forth, looking into his eyes with blue orbs that seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

"You just about scared me to death, Flint. And why are you up at this hour?" Isaac whispered to the Venus Djinni.

"I'm trying to figure out why you're so pensive, although I bet I guessed right," the Djinni replied.

"Fine. You did," Isaac admitted, looking away from the djinni to stare into the fire. Flint was the only one who knew about Isaac's secret. "What about it?"

"Well, you can't dwell on this forever. You need to make a decision. Will chase after your love, or will you continue to work towards saving the world?" Flint said.

"You don't have to put it like that!" Isaac retorted, pushing the djinni off his shoulder and turning away angrily.

But Flint wasn't going to be deterred. "Well, that's your choice. I mean, anything else you try is going to be some variation on those two choices."

"Well-" Isaac started.

"Isaac," Flint interrupted. "I'm not trying to hurt or depress you. I just don't want you to hurt or depress yourself by continuing to let your thoughts be dominated by Ivan. I mean, I don't know anything about these matters, but I'm pretty sure your choice will be the latter – saving the world – so you need to make sure you don't keep yourself from finishing what you started when you set out from Vale just because you met someone along the way."

"Well, you're right that I won't quit my quest over this, but me thinking about Ivan isn't going to keep me from stopping Saturos and Menardi," Isaac said angrily.

"It will if you don't stop dwelling on him. You can think of him, but you fought sloppier today than the day I met you, and I don't want you to end up dead before this is all over," Flint explained. "That's all."

"You…" Isaac begun to argue, but then the anger drained out of him. "You're right. I guess this has been affecting me more than I wanted to believe. I'll do my best not to get distracted with wishful thinking in the future."

"That's all I ask," Flint replied, and hopped onto Isaac's shoulder.

"Thanks," Isaac said.

"Any time," Flint answered, and disappeared in a burst of golden light.

Isaac sat back up against the tree, and continued keeping watch. He didn't let his mind wander so much that he'd lose his attentiveness, but as the silence of the forest enveloped him, his mind turned again to Ivan.

~o~o~o~

This is my first fic, so I hope you enjoyed. Reviews are greatly appreciated. If you want more, let me know and I'll try to get the next chapter out more quickly.

Also, thanks go to Ark Navy for betaing this chapter after the initial publication in order to update it.


	2. The Decision

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Decision

A young boy wandered alone through a dense forest, mind full of recent events. Events that left a very difficult decision before him.

_There's no way I'm getting into Lunpa, _thought the youth as he brushed his blond hair out of his brilliant purple eyes. _The place is a veritable fortress, so it'd be suicide to try to sneak into it alone...and with the bridge to the south broken, I can't even travel back to Kaylay._

"So I'm not really abandoning anything," Ivan reasoned aloud to the empty forest, as he walked through the golden beams of sunlight fanning through the leaves. "Isaac has a mission ahead of him that's both important and dangerous. It's the least I can do to lend a hand to try to help out the world."

_It's only because I want to be with him, though,_ a part of him kept saying. _I shouldn't be abandoning my master for him. I should have tried harder. I shouldn't have let my feelings for Isaac get in the way._

"No… No…" Ivan said, shaking his head. "My feelings did not get in the way! I simply have no other option right now."

_Regardless of what kind of options I have, the reason why I'm not waiting around in Vault for the bridge to be fixed is because of Isaac, _another side of him reasoned. _I can't deny that simple fact._

"Fine. But this is the best option, even if I didn't have these feelings. I can't help Master Hammet, I can't return home, and simply sitting around Vault won't do anything good for anyone," Ivan debated.

_If I follow Isaac, I might never get a chance to free my master, _he argued back.

Ivan sighed. Everything had gotten more complicated since the Shaman Rod had been stolen. When Isaac and Garet had come through the door that day, Ivan had barely been able to suppress his awe at the other youth's beauty. There had been a few times while the three had been working together that Ivan had almost been caught staring at something far lower than Isaac's face. It was almost easier being away from Isaac, yet Ivan wanted nothing more to be with him again.

"Well, it's always possible that I can come back someday, but I won't ever get a chance to be with Isaac again," Ivan reasoned.

_There are other fish in the sea,_ his conscious countered.

"But Isaac is not a fish, nor are we in the sea!" Ivan retorted aloud. Suddenly he chuckled. The argument he was having with himself was growing absurd. What was he? Schizophrenic?

_Enough of this silly indecision, _Ivan finally decided._ I know what I have to do. _In the end, my choices are to wait in Vault for who knows how long, or catch up with Isaac. Neither option helps my master, so Lady Layana will have to handle that particular situation. My decision can be based solely on my own feelings, and not only does Isaac's quest warrant help, but I would also be happier travelling with Isaac than waiting around."

With that to settle his doubts about leaving his Master, Ivan quickened his pace to catch up to the other two adepts. He had made his decision.

_Isaac, here I come, _he thought, then grinned slightly at the images that particular phrase invoked in his mind.

~o~o~o~

Sorry that it's rather short, but making a conversation with himself any longer just seemed strange. I'll try to get the next chapter out more quickly to compensate.

Also, thanks go to Ark Navy for betaing this chapter after the initial publication in order to update it.


	3. The Convergence

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Convergence

The roar of the waterfall all but drowned out the sound of the trees in the wind.

Isaac and Garet were literally stumped in their journey. After finally finding the waterfall marking the entrance to the cave leading through the Goma Range, it was easy to scale the cliff. But they were kept from even getting close to the cave's entrance by the ivy-covered remnants of a careless lumberjack. Isaac pushed with his Psynergy as hard as he could, but the vines held, and he released the Psynergy to avoid exhausting himself.

"It's no use. Our Psynergy isn't strong enough to free that stump," Garet said, somewhat defeated.

Isaac nodded, wondering what they could do.

"You want to move the stump, right?" a familiar voice asked from behind him.

Isaac turned to see Ivan standing behind him, studying the stump. Speechless, Isaac moved out of the way to let Ivan get a closer look.

"It looks like it's trapped in the ivy," Ivan thought aloud, his face pensive. "Isn't there anything we can do?"

Isaac and Garet were silent, Isaac for much less innocent reasons than Garet.

Then Ivan's face lit up. "I know! I have a great idea. Leave it to me!"

The other two adepts nodded, Garet because he trusted Ivan to take care of the problem and Isaac because he was too preoccupied to form a coherent sentence.

Isaac watched as Ivan turned back to the stump, all but drooling at the view. _He looks so wonderful when he casts Psynergy,_ he thought, noticing how the wind seemed to pick up around the Jupiter adept, giving his clothes a life of their own while his entrancing violet eyes steeled over in a determination that was absent at other times.

He continued staring at Ivan in a daze as the Wind Seer explained what had happened.

Isaac got nothing more than a vague idea that Ivan had come to join them, and his heart beat nearly tripled in speed with excitement.

"Then let's go!" Ivan encouraged, bringing Isaac back to his senses. Isaac looked into Ivan's eyes, happier than he had been since before the eruption.

After moving the stump and clearing another cluster of ivy, the three adepts moved into the darkness of the Goma Cave.

~o~

Isaac had fought together with Garet since they had first been taught to do so. They knew each others' styles almost as well as they knew their own, and had learned to meld their styles together well enough to make them a far better fighting force than they would have been fighting separately.

On the other hand, Isaac had only fought with Ivan once before, yet after only a few more battles, he felt he knew Ivan's style almost as well as Garet's. He also felt more comfortable when working in concert with Ivan. He and Garet often had to spread out in order to avoid getting in each others' way, but Isaac felt extremely comfortable dealing with the monsters hand-to-hand with his sword while Ivan swept them off their feet with wind gusts. The leftover wind following the Jupiter adept's attacks left him feeling refreshed, banishing his exhaustion. Ivan seemed to revel in being able to cast spells without having to worry about his own safety, as Isaac always made sure to stand between the wind adept and their adversaries. Together they made a powerful team.

Garet noticed this almost immediately. "Man, you two barely speak to each other in combat, yet you work together so smoothly. It's like you can read each others' minds."

Garet scratched his head in wonder. "…But I'm _sure_ I'd notice if you were using Psynergy to do so."

Isaac quickly suppressed a blush. "Well, I guess it's just the fact that our styles work well together," he said, forcing a shrug. "Beyond that, I really don't know."

Ivan said nothing, giving Isaac a questioning look that seemed to penetrate the earth adept as readily as the blond's Mind Read.

"Well, come on. I'd like to get out of this cave as soon as we can," Isaac said, quickly putting his back to the other two, somewhat disconcerted with Ivan's gaze.

Ivan continued looking at Isaac. _Could he…_ the wind adept thought, heart leaping. Then he shook his head. _No… It's just a false hope…just a silly fantasy... I think…_

~o~

Ivan was still pondering this when the three adepts reached the other end of the cave.

"Finally, a breath of fresh air!" cried Garet as the group walked out of the cave and into the night air. He breathed deeply, and smiled, looking at the bright stars.

"It looks like the sun just went down," Isaac said, checking the moon's position.

Ivan said nothing, still deep in thought, running through every moment he had spent with Isaac, trying to figure out if his hopes had any merit.

"Man, you barely seemed to have noticed that we're out of that stale old cave, Ivan. Is something up?" Garet asked.

_There are really only two ways I can figure out if my suspicions are correct, _Ivan thought, ignoring Garet.

"Of course he noticed," Isaac replied. "Just because he's a little calmer than you doesn't mean that he's any less appreciative."

Ivan nodded, but was still consumed by his thoughts.

"Fine; whatever. But this sure is a beautiful night!" Garet said, stretching. Suddenly he yawned. "Man, I'm tired, though. We've been walking through that cave all day."

_I can always talk to him, _Ivan thought, still barely paying attention to Garet. _But the alternative is much safer…If I can figure out a way to… Wait, I know…_

"I'll take first watch!" Ivan volunteered. Both of the other two blinked, surprised at the suddenness of Ivan's suggestion.

"Then I'll go second," Isaac added, dropping his pack and laying out his bedroll.

"Fine by me," Garet agreed, laying down his pack and grabbing some nearby sticks for the fire.

Ivan set up his spot somewhat near Isaac as the other two got ready for bed, Garet lighting the fire and Isaac eating a quick snack as he straightened his pack.

Ten minutes later, the two were asleep. Ivan waited a few more minutes, just to be entirely sure. He then closed his eyes, focused his mind on Isaac, and cast Mind Read.

In his dreams, Isaac cleaved through a pair of Zombies that had been closing in on Ivan. He then speared another pair on two stalagmites he summoned from the earth, but a final monster slipped through his defenses and closed in on Ivan. But the wind adept wasn't helpless. He pointed his staff at the Ghost and sent an impressive Ray attack at it. Seconds later, a fried husk dissipated into vapor. He then turned to Isaac and gave him a huge grin.

Isaac straightened from his combat stance and grinned back, then saw a Skeleton jump from a nearby tree. It struck Ivan across the back, and Ivan fell down onto the ground, rolling away from the danger.

Isaac roared and jumped into the air. His sword glowed bright as he brought it down, utterly destroying the Skeleton that had dared to strike at his ally.

"Ivan!" Isaac yelled as he rushed to the fallen adept.

"Don't worry. It's just a scratch," Ivan whispered faintly, as Isaac quickly knelt down over him.

"It's more than just a scratch!" Isaac corrected angrily. Then, with a soft voice and care filling his eyes, he said, "But I can heal it."

Isaac laid his hand on the wound in Ivan's shoulder and a soft, golden glow emanated from his palm. The tear sealed, leaving the skin unmarked. Isaac then looked deeply into Ivan's eyes and found the wind adept's enrapturing gaze meeting his own. Ivan reached his hands up, took Isaac's head in his hands, brought the other adept's lips down towards his, and…

Ivan smiled as he released the Psynergy, barely suppressing his excitement. Looking across the clearing, the wind adept saw Isaac smile and knew that very happy images were dancing across the Venus Adept's dreams.

~o~o~o~

For those of you keeping up with me as I write this, I meant it when I said that I'd update more quickly to make up for the short chapter. ;) I hope you enjoyed reading and thanks for the reviews.

Also, thanks go to Ark Navy for betaing this chapter after the initial publication in order to update it.


	4. The Hesitation

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Hesitation

"Wake up, Isaac."

Isaac awoke to the very same voice that filled his dreams, and at first, he thought he had simply woken into another dream.

"Isaac, wake up," the angelic voice called to him yet again. He rolled over and realized that he was alone and in his bedroll. He groaned, wishing strongly that he could remain in the soft, warm bed he had just left behind in his dreams, where he had been very much not alone.

"Isaac, come on."

Groaning again, Isaac sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Still shaking off sleep, Isaac looked up at Ivan in the flickering light of their fire. He was crouching nearby so he wouldn't disturb Garet.

"Morning," Ivan said sarcastically as he stood up. But Isaac detected something else within that single word and Ivan's expression. What it was, he couldn't tell. Affection? Wistfulness? Longing? He had no idea. Perhaps it was his dreams seeping into his reality, making him hear what wasn't there.

Giving no hint at the confused emotions Ivan's greeting had invoked, Isaac asked "Is it already my turn?"

"Yes," Ivan stated simply, and again Isaac heard a trace of unknown emotion in the other adept's voice. Ivan then seemed to hesitate. He looked as if he was now forced to make a decision that he had contemplated, but hadn't yet decided upon.

Then the moment passed. Without further comment, the wind adept turned away from the Isaac, strode quickly to his side of the clearing, laid down in his bedroll, and rolled away from the firelight to sleep, leaving Isaac confused with what had passed between the two.

With nothing else to think about, Isaac brooded about the exchange as the night moved silently on around him.

~o~

The fresh rays of dawn pierced the clearing as Isaac woke again, this time to Garet's voice.

Isaac groaned yet again as he felt the taste fade from his lips, the touch fade from his fingers, the warmth fade from his limbs, as reality reasserted itself over what had consumed him since he had passed on the watch to Garet.

_This cannot be healthy,_ he thought. _Thoughts of him shouldn't dominate me night and day. Especially _these _kinds of thoughts. _Although another part of him loved it and wanted it to be real more than words could ever express.

Pushing away the confused thoughts and alluring dreams of the night before, he joined the other two in eating breakfast. After a few small attempts at making conversation, the group fell into silence. Isaac knew Garet wasn't much of a conversationalist when he was eating, but he couldn't fathom the reason why Ivan was so quiet, as he hadn't been this quiet either the day before or in Vault.

Again, Isaac wondered if there was something going on with Ivan. While he still wasn't sure of what he had seen the night before, he was sure that he hadn't imagined whatever it was. He studied Ivan closely, trying to see if there was any indication of what had happened recently.

Ivan was eating absently, staring off into the distance. He looked extremely pensive, as if he was contemplating a difficult decision or trying to figure out the solution to an extremely complex problem. Or perhaps both.

When breakfast was finished, the three packed up and set off at a brisk pace in order to reach Bilibin before nightfall. Garet made a few attempts at conversation now that they were on the move, but both Isaac and Ivan were deep in their own thoughts, barely responding. He quickly changed his focus to getting to know the Djinni he had met while getting through Goma Cave.

And in this manner, they continued their journey.

~o~

"That's an odd-looking tree," Garet commented as the three adepts walked through the wooden wall that surrounded Bilibin.

The quick journey down from the foothills of the Goma Range had been uneventful, but had taken most of the day. As such, they were all tired, but content with the progress they had made. Ivan had decided that he needed more time to figure out exactly how to approach Isaac about what he now knew to be their mutual feelings. If they weren't both guys, it would be easy, but that added a level of complication that Ivan wanted to be sure that he'd taken into consideration.

"Let's split up for now and see if we can find out anything about Saturos and his group," Isaac said. "I'll restock our supplies at the local herb store and check out the weapons and armor shop, too. Garet, you take the western side of town; Ivan, take the eastern side. We'll meet at the inn at the end of today and check out the palace together tomorrow."

Ivan hid a smile, only nodding before turning onto his own path leading further into the town. He loved the way Isaac took charge of things without becoming overbearing. He made an excellent leader, and Ivan found it to be a very attractive part of Isaac's personality. Now if only he could figure out how to approach the matter. In particular, he wanted to bring it up in a private manner, as few in Weyard were gay, and not many more were very accepting of it.

He walked along the houses, mostly just trying to get a feel for the basic attitude of its residents. He hadn't met Saturos or his party while in Vault, but those who had remembered the event quite vividly. He was passively searching for something similar while he continued his thinking about his dilemma.

Most didn't know it, but a Jupiter Adept's mind reading abilities weren't something activated the same way normal Psynergy was. It was pretty much always active, feeding Ivan the vague feelings around him. He could focus the Psynergy on one person to fully read their mind, effectively casting it like other Psynergy, but there were different degrees to his ability to mind read. It was also possible to completely ignore the minds of those around him, which was what he had done for Isaac and Garet out of respect for their wishes. It wasn't a hard thing to just detect the surface emotions and strong memories or thoughts of those around him, even while thinking hard about something entirely different.

_And it's not just a problem of secrecy,_ he thought._ Garet obviously needs to know if we're going to continue to travel with him, so there is his reaction to consider. Plus, I don't really know how secure Isaac is in this._ _I have heard of people who had these feelings, yet didn't want them. Unfortunately, what his dream was like is poor indication of that. I wish I could find out more about how Isaac feels about this… Man, this stuff is so much more complicated than I ever thought it was._

He stopped, trying to figure out what was going on in the minds of the people around him. He hadn't detected anything that would have indicated Saturos' group, but everyone in town seemed to be worried about something. What was strange was that it seemed to be the same thing, though in varying degrees. He focused more on some of the individual minds around him, actively pushing the Psynergy to show him more details. What he found surprised him.

He quickly reaffirmed what he thought he had heard, exploring more of the town in the process. Just as the sun was about to reach the horizon, he turned to head for the inn.

~o~

"So you're sure they headed north?" Isaac asked.

"Yes, they bought supplies similar to what you have, stayed the night, and set off north early in the morning," the innkeeper answered. "We warned them that the cave going through the mountains to Imil is still likely blocked by snow, but they didn't seem concerned. They probably won't be able to get through until the week is out."

"Thanks. You've helped me a lot," Isaac responded. Then, sliding some coins on the table, he said, "Could I please get three rooms for the night then?"

Eyes brightening at the sight of the gold, the innkeeper checked an open book on the counter, then nodded. "There are three rooms upstairs that you may use."

"Thanks, and keep the change for your troubles," Isaac said. The innkeeper gave him a smile, handed the adept three keys, and went back to the bookwork he had been doing when Isaac had first walked up.

After a quick trip upstairs to put away his pack and the supplies he had bought, Isaac settled down in a quiet corner of the inn to wait for the other three.

He thought of Ivan yet again. It had become harder and harder to focus on anything else for long, but he had managed to take care of what he needed throughout the day despite this. He just hoped it didn't get any worse.

A woman wearing an apron walked up, carrying a small pad of paper "Would you like anything to drink or eat, sir?" she asked, giving him a suggestive smile.

"Nothing for now, thanks," Isaac answered, returning her smile. "But when my two companions join me, I'm sure we'll order dinner."

"Very well then," she said, giving him a wink before returning to her work with the other tables.

Isaac watched her go, quickly tearing her eyes off her comely frame before someone noticed his gaze.

_Now this is probably the most confusing part about this. I've never felt this way towards another man before. I've had a couple of times where I've considered the possibility, but I've never had feelings for another man. _Isaac sighed. _And now that I have, I still notice a beautiful woman's charm, although it doesn't seem quite so intoxicating when compared to Ivan's presence…_

Homosexuality wasn't something forbidden or even really looked down on in Vale. But it wasn't really common, either. It wasn't really assumed that you were straight, so he knew everyone at some point had considered it, most even going so far as to actively experiment. Isaac had gone through the same, but hadn't ever really felt those kinds of feelings except towards a girl or two. That is, until he met Ivan.

_I guess it's just surprising that these feelings are rising out of nowhere with no warning._ He leaned back in his chair, resting his eyes. _Well, it's not really that big of a deal. I just need to figure out how to approach Ivan. I don't really know how the rest of the world views this kind of relationship, so I need to be careful. I also need to do my best to make sure that bringing this up doesn't hurt our journey, especially if…_

Then he stopped himself, refusing to follow that line of thought. Even as he pushed it away, though, the possibility of rejection pained him.

He remained like that, his mind wandering from possibility to possibility until he heard footsteps approach. He opened his eyes to see Garet and Ivan join him at the table.

"What have you heard?" he asked, wasting no time.

~o~o~o~

Sorry about taking so long to update. I was hoping to update about every week, but I've been really busy lately. I'll try to do better in the future. Reviews are great, and also will generally lead to a quicker update. Thanks for reading.


	5. The Commitment

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Commitment

"So the entire town is scared to death of this curse turning men into trees?" Isaac asked, eyes wide. The three now had mugs before them. Isaac had skipped the alcohol, never really liking the stuff, but the other two had indulged themselves a bit. Although from what they were explaining, he could understand why the other two were a bit shaken.

"Yes," Garet answered, the worry in his voice apparent. "Everyone was more worried about what's going on to the east in Kolima than about Saturos and his company."

"I basically had the same results," Ivan added, his voice shaking slightly as well. "Some people deny that it's happening, but it's only outwardly. In truth, everyone's scared, and they're all worried that what happened in Kolima will happen here."

"Great…" Isaac said, putting his face in his hands, trying to think of what to do.

"Did you find out anything?" Ivan asked.

"Well, I asked around while at the shops and here at the inn. I honestly have barely heard a word about that. I can see why they avoided the subject, though…they must be trying to avoid scaring away their business. I did find out about Saturos, though," Isaac explained.

"Okay, out with it!" Garet exclaimed, suddenly all business. Isaac had noticed that he seemed to get very serious any time when Saturos and his band were mentioned. He wondered if it had something to do with Jenna…Isaac had heard rumors, but hadn't given them any credence until now.

_Perhaps they were together,_ he thought. _I wish I could say the same thing about myself and Ivan…_

"They gathered some supplies at the same shop I visited, rested here for a night, then travelled north," Isaac stated, trying not to get caught up in his thoughts. "Apparently there's a town called 'Imil' up north, and that was where they were headed. I've also heard mention of a lighthouse, which is where Saturos and his group are suppose to be travelling to. Then I asked the innkeeper, and he confirmed that the group did travel north."

Ivan and Garet were quiet for a bit, trying to process what Isaac had said. Finally Garet asked, "So when do we leave?"

"Not for a while," came Isaac's response. "According to the innkeeper, the mountains up north are still snowed in at this time of year. There's only one cave that leads through the mountains to Imil and the lighthouse, and it's suppose to be covered in snow and inaccessible for another week at least."

"So we can catch them before we get to the lighthouse!" Garet said, excited. "Why would we wait?"

"Just…a feeling. I don't know; it's hard to explain, but I just don't think it'd be wise to follow them just yet," Isaac explained slowly. "…and there's something else…"

"This curse?" Ivan asked.

Isaac only nodded.

Garet furrowed his brow. "I understand your concern, Isaac…but doesn't our mission come before anything else?" He lowered his voice, looking around. "I mean, we're talking about the potential destruction of the world, here. Not just the fate of one village."

Privately, Isaac was wondering whether Garet had more personal reasons to put their mission before anything else, but he didn't want to accuse his friend of something like that, especially when he was far from sure of the situation.

"Garet, I don't know…" Isaac answered. "It just…doesn't seem right. Just writing off Kolima, and perhaps even Bilibin as well. If we're supposed to be on a quest to save the world, shouldn't we try to do what we can to help everyone? Especially in these dangerous times."

Garet sat back in his chair, considering what Isaac had said.

"And besides, most of these troubles seem to stem back to the Psynergy crystals that erupted when Mt. Aleph erupted," Ivan added. "The monsters didn't show up until then, and most of the troubles in Vault and here started around that same time. I think that eruption had many consequences that we aren't even aware of yet."

"So just like we're suppose to fix our mistake by retrieving the elemental stars, we should be trying to help out the people that are suffering due to the eruption?" Garet asked, seemingly more to himself than the other two. "Put that way, I don't see how we cannot help. But let's wait until tomorrow, and discuss this with Lord McCoy. From what I've heard, there's a barrier to the east, and you need Lord McCoy's permission to get through it."

"Okay; it's decided," Isaac said. "Since Saturos can't continue on through the Bilibin Cave right now, we might as well try to do what we can to help Bilibin and Kolima. Once that's taken care of or the time gets nearer to when the pass clears, we'll set off north to stop them at the lighthouse."

"Yes, that seems to be the best route of action for now," Ivan agreed.

"And we'll do the same in the future, right? This is a commitment. We can't ignore those in need when we have powers that aren't exactly common," Isaac stated.

"Yes," Ivan confirmed without hesitation.

Garet nodded, then stretched and yawned, "Well, now that that's decided, I'm going to bed. Good night." He grabbed his key off the table where Isaac had put it, and left without another word.

Isaac and Ivan sat at the table for a few seconds, both embroiled in what this decision meant for their little company.

"I think it's good that you're not forgetting the rest of the world while on this journey," Ivan suddenly said. "It's brave to take on more responsibility than you were initially given, especially considering what we're up against." The remark caught Isaac off-guard. Ivan had never said anything so nice to him.

"Thanks. That means a lot to me," Isaac answered, then added without thinking, "Especially when it's coming from you." As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to call them back. He looked up at Ivan, wondering what his response would be.

"Isaac…you're, um…too kind…" Ivan said, breaking eye contact to look down at his mug. In that response, the earth adept heard something…He didn't know what it was, but there was something there…something powerful.

"There's…something I've…" Isaac said, struggling to get the words out. "Well, there's-something-I've-wanted-to-talk-to-you-about," he finally said, speaking so quickly that he doubted that Ivan could have understood what he meant.

"Very well," Ivan responded, his voice hiding all emotion now. He still wasn't making eye contact. "There's something I've needed to say to you as well… Let's go outside, though." He then turned away and walked out the door without a backwards glance.

Isaac quickly got to his feet, thinking enough to leave coins on the table for the drinks, and chased after his crush, his heart brimming with hope…and worry.

As Isaac stepped out into the cool night air, he barely caught sight of Ivan's tunic disappearing behind a house at the end of the lane. The earth adept practically threw himself after the wind adept, trying to keep up.

For several minutes, Isaac followed his blond-haired crush, wondering what Ivan was thinking with this chase, but unwilling to stop following. Somehow he never caught up enough to see any more than just a flash of Ivan before he disappeared around the next corner.

Isaac soon found himself near the edge of town, at the base of a stairway leading up to the wall around the town, right where it met with a cliff that provided the rest of the town's protection. He quickly jogged up the staircase, looking up at the top where Ivan had disappeared.

When he reached the top, he found himself confronted with the most wondrous sight he had ever seen.

The moon was full and more beautiful than Isaac had ever seen it. Shining like a gorgeous diamond, it bathed the entire scene in an unearthly light. In the moonlight, the whole world seemed to be caste in silver. The forest in the distance looked like an intricate sculpture inlaid with jade. The river seemed to flow with quicksilver. The grass was an intricate painting of green, silver, and ebony. The stars shone like thousands of minute diamonds, amazing, despite being outshone by the moon. Otherwise the sky was the deepest, purest black ever seen, but still beautiful, not dark or evil. The mountains uniting the earth with the heavens seemed to have been crafted by greatest artisans the world had ever seen, with a deep mixture of purples, greens, and browns, with the tips white as the purest pearl.

The world Isaac saw was perfect, yet to him, it all seemed drab compared to the true source of the world's beauty.

That source was leaning against a pillar on the wall. His arms were folded and his head tilted slightly to the side, his stance casual. Yet at the same time, he exuded confidence more than Isaac had ever seen. The purples and greens of his robes seemed to be made of the same wondrous colors as the rest of the scene. Ivan's hair was the only thing in the entire world that was gold, rather than silver, and it seemed even brighter and more beautiful than the moon and all the stars combined. He wore an almost sheepish half-smile, but it seemed to convey happiness greater than the broadest grin. His brilliant purples eyes also spoke of the happiness that seemed to be radiating from the young wind adept.

"Isaac," Ivan said, his voice filled with a chorus of angels, the perfect musical accompaniment to the scene that surrounded him. "You said there was something you wanted to tell me, but there's something I need to tell you, first…"

"Very well," Isaac said, struggling to seem as casual as Ivan was. "You first then."

~o~o~o~

Hey, I had to leave you with a real cliffhanger at some point, right? And it's not like everyone doesn't know exactly what's about to happen anyway. The reason for the absurdly quick update was because I was really looking forward to writing both this chapter and the next, and I've had a lot more time the last few days to work on this. Read, review, and enjoy. The next update should be up very soon, so keep an eye out for it.


	6. The Revelation

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Revelation

Suddenly, Ivan's composure seemed to fail him, but he turned away, looking out at the countryside.

Curious, Isaac strode up to the wind adept's side and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know if I can say it," Ivan said, still not making eye contact. "I want to tell you this more than anything in the world right now, but somehow I can't find the words."

Ivan was taken aback at this turn of events. Mind racing to figure out what Ivan might want to say, he forced himself to remain outwardly calm and said, "Ivan, we're friends; you can tell me anything."

"I don't want to be friends, Isaac," Ivan barely whispering.

Isaac took a step back, stunned. All the world seemed to be falling down around him. The beauty seemed almost instantly to be sapped from the world, and he could only manage to say, "Why?"

"I…" Ivan muttered, courage seeming to fail him. Then he turned, purple eyes glowing with passion, and all but yelled "I just don't! I don't want to _just_ be friends!"

"_Just_ be friends?" Isaac asked. "You mean…"

But he didn't finish, because Ivan had just thrown himself into Isaac's arms. And all thought ceased as their lips met.

For what seemed like ages, the world contained only the two and their kiss.

When Isaac finally ended the kiss, he simply stood there, holding Ivan in his arms. "Why didn't you tell me?" the earth adept asked.

"I was scared…" Ivan replied. "I read your mind once when you were dreaming and saw you dreaming about me. But I wasn't sure you wanted your feelings for me. Some feel that way but reject their feelings anyway. I couldn't stand to see you do that."

Isaac loosened his hold to look Ivan in the eye. "You read my mind?"

Ivan didn't meet the gaze. "Yes…I'm sorry that I –"

Isaac interrupted him with a small kiss. He then said, "I think it's wonderful that you cared enough to find out about my feelings before doing anything. The fact that you care more for my feelings than a silly promise made to assuage silly insecurities says a lot about how much you care about what really matters."

"Thank you," Ivan replied, finally meeting the earth adept's golden eyes. "You have no idea how much that means to me.

Isaac led the wind adept to a tree, and the two sat against it in each others' arms.

"So, you were worried about me hiding my feelings?" Isaac asked.

"Yes," the wind adept responded.

"Why?"

"Once before, in Kaylay, I had a crush and read his mind to find out if he liked me," Ivan slowly explained. "This was something I've done a few times. And this one did have feelings for me, but when I approached him about it, he denied it. I continued pestering him in private, and he eventually admitted it, but said that he'd never give into those feelings. His father was in the Kaylay guard, and he would simply never accept his son as gay."

"Really?" Isaac asked, surprised.

"Yes. Homophobia isn't all that rampant in Kaylay, but it's still an issue in a lot of households. And where it exists, it's pretty scary."

"Wow…I never knew that this was an issue outside of Vale," Isaac responded. "In Vale, being gay isn't a big deal. We understand that it's just different; not better or worse. In fact, most people experiment with that quite promiscuously."

"Did you?" Ivan asked, curious.

"With a few girls, but nothing very serious. I did have a crush on a guy one time, but it never went anywhere," Isaac answered, shrugging. Ivan then felt the earth adept pull him closer. "And I've never had feelings like the way I feel for you."

Ivan gave Isaac a brief kiss, and then stated, "You know, you'd think it would be easy to have confidence when you know what's in someone's head. And I did have confidence. I even thought I was ready to tell you. But at the last minute, those doubts and worries resurfaced and stopped me… But here in your arms, I feel like I could take on the world."

"Well, we're all stronger when we stand together," Isaac said sagely. Then he teased "And man, are we _together_."

"So we're a couple now?" Ivan asked.

Isaac answered with a short kiss.

"Mmmm," the wind adept said suggestively. "I'll take that as a yes." He sat there in silence for a second, then pulled away to look Isaac in the face. "I've never had anyone I trusted enough to talk about stuff like this before." He smiled. "It feels nice."

"And it's wonderful to see you outside your shell," Isaac stated, answering Ivan's smile in kind. He took Ivan's hands in his, kissed them, and asked, "Why aren't you this talkative around others? You're always so quiet, even downright shy in a couple situations."

"It's not that I'm really shy. That was more me being around you before I knew how you felt. I just prefer to be quiet and withdrawn most of the time. I don't know why…there's just a part of me I often don't share with people. Mostly just close friends."

"And now your boyfriend?" Isaac asked.

"And now my boyfriend," Ivan confirmed.

Isaac pulled Ivan back into a hug. "You know, thinking back, you mostly just didn't seem all that sure about your abilities. You should be more confident about yourself as a whole. It's a shame that more people can't see this side of you."

"Maybe I should try to put myself out there more," Ivan said, pensive for a second. He then laughed. "But you're one to talk! You're always the strong, silent type to a fault."

"I just don't have a whole lot to say to most people. I just prefer not to talk simply to talk. There has to be a reason to do so before I'm going to start up a conversation," Isaac explained.

"Mmmmmm…" Ivan answered, nuzzling Isaac's neck.

Ivan begun to talk about his childhood, how had grown up in Kaylay and knew that Hammet and Layana weren't his biological parents, but he had accepted them as parents regardless. He shared the way he had felt out of place his whole life and that he had come to doubt his abilities, even though he had unique and astonishing powers. He told Isaac about some of the politics in Kaylay, and the earth adept seemed surprised at how complex the trade Kaylay handled was, and equally surprised at how well Ivan knew the inner workings of it.

In return, Ivan got to hear about Isaac's childhood, growing up with Garet and Jenna. He talked about the accident three years before when his father had been killed. He described how difficult it had been for both himself and his mother to continue on with life afterwards, and how they had finally managed to move on with their lives. He also explained that he had chosen to train himself as an adept so he could try to keep that from happening to others, as well.

They continued to talk, exploring the other's personality, trying to get to know each other better. They hadn't been able to do that, even just as friends before now.

After what seemed like hours, they finally agreed to go back to the Inn and get some rest before seeing Lord McCoy the next morning. They walked back in a happy silence, holding hands as discreetly as was possible to do so.

When they finally reached the inn, they quietly snuck to the rooms Isaac had rented. Isaac opened his door, and led his boyfriend into his room.

"Isaac…" Ivan said playfully as he was pulled into the room. "Come now, we've barely become boyfriends. You can't honestly expect that we could sleep together the first night."

This elicited a smile and the earth adept responded, "You're right, of course; I didn't really think about it. And it would be rather embarrassing if Garet wakes up in the morning and finds out that the other room hadn't been used. Although the look on his face…"

The both looked at each other for a second, then broke out laughing at the thought of Garet walking in on them. Ivan recovered first, and approached Isaac.

"Good night then," Ivan said, hugging Isaac tightly.

Isaac gave the wind adept a long, drawn-out kiss and then said softly, "Good night."

Ivan walked to the door, gave Isaac one last, loving glance, and left to go to his room. When he got there, he quickly dressed for bed, mind still spinning from what had happened that night. When he finally laid down to sleep, he smiled, knowing that the wonderful dreams he was about to dive into would someday be reality.

~o~o~o~

Hmmm... So I just updated the chapter and managed to lose the original closing comment. Oh well. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. If you're reading this now, the next story will actually be up soon! I'm back from my hiatus and will be writing again, at least over Christmas break. And reviews are what brought me back, so if you want more, take the time to write one, even if it's just a short "Hey, I liked your story! Keep it going!"


	7. The Setup

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Setup

"Well, it's about _time_!" Garet exclaimed.

Isaac's jaw dropped, leaving him looking completely dumbfounded, and Ivan assumed that he looked about the same.

The three were sitting in a relatively deserted corner of the inn, where they had eaten their breakfast. The two had just told Garet what had transpired the night before. His response left them both speechless.

Garet grinned at their surprise. "You two both have the least subtle lazy eyes I've ever seen. Just so you know, it's not too difficult to hide from the person you're looking at, but other people notice if they're paying any attention at all. Especially when you're completely _failing_ at being subtle."

When the two were still stunned, he raised an eyebrow, asking "Come on. Isaac, you at least should know that I've never been a bigot of any kind."

Isaac finally closed his mouth before responding, "Well, I didn't think you'd hate us for it or anything, but the last thing I expected was you telling us that we 'fail at being subtle.' I wasn't really sure what you'd say, though…"

Ivan laughed and added "I thought the same thing. You certainly don't seem like a bigot, but I didn't expect you to be so casual about it."

"Ugh, it's not like it has to be some big deal," Garet answered, rolling his eyes. "I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it's just like if we had a girl in the group and she hooked up with one of you. The only thing that's different is that we'll run into homophobes on our travels, so you have to be a bit more discreet in public. But when it's only the three of us, well…just don't be lewd, okay?"

"Of course not," Isaac answered, keeping a carefully straight face.

Ivan, too, suppressed a giggle. He figured Isaac had also thought of their shared joke the night before.

"Okay. Good. Let's go see Lord McCoy about the barricade," Garet said, bringing their attention back to their quest. Leaving a polite tip on the table, Garet stood up and led the way out of the inn. Isaac and Ivan followed, clearly wanting to hold each others' hands, but not doing so because it was a public place.

As the three walked out, Ivan asked, "So why were you suddenly a conversationalist, Garet?" He had found it very strange that Garet had suddenly had so much to say. It was unusual.

"It's not like you two aren't the only ones that haven't had certain thoughts bottled up all this time," Garet explained. "It was hard keeping myself from commenting or saying anything while you two were beating around the bush."

"Well, you could have done something to let us know that the feelings were mutual," Isaac responded, both annoyed and amused.

Garet laughed and flashed a mischievous grin. "Didn't I?"

Ivan thought back to the night before and realized that Garet had both bought him the drink when they arrived back at the inn, and had also left for bed far earlier than the three usually slept.

"So it was all on purpose?" Ivan asked, eyeing Garet with a new level of respect.

"Wait, did he do something more than go to bed early?" Isaac said, looking between the two of them.

"Garet was the one who bought me the drink last night," Ivan explained, and a sudden look of realization crossed Isaac's face.

"Oh…" Isaac responded. "You two didn't mention that."

"Not enough to get you drunk, since that wouldn't have been good, but enough to loosen your tongue," Garet explained almost gleefully. "I was hoping something would slip, given the right circumstances. I also asked the innkeeper to wait to lock the door until you two got back from your night of bonding."

"I should have known," Isaac said with a laugh that made Ivan's heart leap. "You go to sleep quickly, but you never go to bed early."

Garet just grinned, obviously pleased with himself.

"Well, at least we're together now," Ivan said, briefly clasping Isaac's hand before they drifted apart again.

"Yes," Isaac said. "At least we're together." His voice was tinged with something Ivan couldn't identify. He guessed that it was regret or frustration…or both.

~o~

Isaac ducked his head as he moved through the opening in the barricade Garet had exposed.

Lord McCoy had refused to let them tackle the curse, but one of the guards had dropped a hint that they might not need a key. After a brief investigation involving conversations with construction crews and a few brief uses of Ivan's mind reading abilities, they had decided that it was quite possible that they could get through the barrier with Psynergy instead of McCoy's key. They were right.

Isaac looked around the area, noticing three strange trees that seemed to be stacked on each other or something. _Almost as if…they were humans trying to reach the top of that cliff…_

The thought sent a shudder through his spine. He sincerely hoped that they would be able to handle whatever the source of this curse was. Isaac still wanted to do what he could to help, but he would have to be an idiot not to be at least a little scared. _Especially with what I have now_, he thought, looking back at Ivan, who was just squeezing through the gap.

As the wind adept straightened, Isaac grabbed his hand and planted a kiss on his cheek. Ivan answered back, and they soon found themselves leaning against the north side of the barricade, making out for all they were worth.

Suddenly Garet's muffled voice interrupted them. "While I'm sure that is enjoyable for you, I'd appreciate it if you would let me through, seeing as I plugged up the other side so no one will notice we came through here."

They stopped and quickly vacated the hole so Garet could get out and straighten up.

"Sorry," they said together.

"Try not to do that _too_ much," Garet told them, sounding both exasperated and amused. "We have a lot of ground to cover before we reach Kolima, but we should be able to get there if we push ourselves a bit."

"Okay; you're right," Isaac said, sighing. "Besides, Ivan, you need to get acquainted with your Djinni." He gave Ivan one last peck, and then continued to lead the way to Kolima.

~o~

Isaac and Ivan were becoming better at fighting together every day. It was almost as if one knew what the other was about to do before even he knew it. This, combined with their ever-growing strength allowed them to handle each new monster ever more easily, despite the monsters' increasing strength and numbers. Ivan was also learning how to match his style with Garet better, too, though not nearly so much as Isaac.

By mid-day, they had reached the outer edge of the forest that contained Kolima. Kolima was in a small, bright wooded area. The forest that actually held its name was a ways to the north, at the foot of some mountains, and was much denser. They then agreed to stop for an hour to eat and rest up in preparation for whatever would meet them when they reached the city.

Isaac and Ivan both wolfed down their food, in order to have more time to spend with each other, and after only a few minutes, they were just waiting for Garet to finish before cleaning up.

He paused in his eating, looking up and them and said, "Oh, forget being polite. I'll wash up when I'm done. You two go enjoy some time together somewhere with more privacy."

They both grinned, hopped to their feet, and set off into the woods in each others' arms, already talking about everything and nothing.

Isaac and Ivan talked, kissed, talked, and kissed some more, all the while wandering through the forest. None of the conversation was very serious, as they were mostly just trying to get to know each other better, but Isaac was distinctly aware that there was one discussion that could be unpleasant, but it might be extremely important to their relationship.

"What would Hammet and Layana think of this?" he asked after a particularly long kiss.

Ivan initially didn't make eye contact. "Well…I'm not sure… It really didn't happen in Kaylay. They weren't numerous, but the homophobes were serious enough that most people interested in the same sex simply moved away, since it was easier than dealing with it." He then added sadly, "A few of my friends did that…"

"Were you going to move away?" Isaac asked.

Ivan shook his head. "You're the first person I've had a relationship with that went anywhere. None of my other crushes panned out, whether they weren't interested or refused to admit it."

"So, if you had to guess, what do you think they would say?"

"It really never came up in a case where they were involved, to be honest…" Then, after thinking for a bit, Ivan said, "But even if Lady Layana disapproved, she would be supportive. She's always that way. And Master Hammet…I'm not sure. While he expects certain things of me, such as finding the Rod, he's always given me the independence to do what I want, and hasn't ever really interfered much. Although there are people in Kaylay who would greatly disapprove, and would do what they could to interfere, I don't think Hammet and Layana will be among them. And Dora isn't an exception to the rule in Vale?"

"No, of course not. She'll probably be happy that I've found someone I want to spend my life with," Isaac explained. "The people of Vale have always believed that each of us should have the freedom to do what we want so long as we refrain from harming others and help fulfill our duties to protect Mt. Aleph."

"Well, that's good," Ivan said. He stopped and sat back against a tree, patting the ground next to him. "Unfortunately, most places will likely be closer to Kaylay than Vale."

"You know…I've been thinking about this, and why should we hid this?" Isaac asked, sitting down next to Ivan. "We're in the right of it. People should be able to do what they want, so long as they aren't hurting anyone. If it comes down to an argument, we're right and if it's a fight, we'll be stronger." Ivan noticed a steel in Isaac's voice that he had only heard once before: when the earth adept had faced down the bandits in Vault. It spoke of a deep determination to do what was right, not what was easy. Isaac seemed to thrive on opposing intolerance, greed, hate, and "evil" in all its forms.

And while Ivan greatly admired this, he felt he needed to put a more pragmatic foot down.

"Sometimes it's just easier to not to deal with the conflicts, though. I'm not sure if I want to be defending ourselves everywhere we go," Ivan responded. "I mean, if someone's being actively harassed, we should help them, but we should try to avoid stirring up trouble where we can avoid it."

"I refuse to hide who we are because some people are idiotic bigots!" Isaac exclaimed. "It's no different than if someone was threatening you personally. If someone was trying to hurt Garet or me, you would be willing to defend us immediately and without question, right?"

"Yes, but –"

"Well, defending our ability to be together openly, not in the shadows, is no different," Isaac continued.

"Isaac –"

"They can disapprove. I don't care. People disapprove about a ton of things, and it's not a big deal. But if they're going to take any action based on that, it's no different than if they were attacking us outright–"

"_ISAAC!_" Ivan interrupted again, this time shouting to get himself heard.

Isaac's mouth snapped shut.

"I appreciate your fervor, and I agree with you, but I'd just rather avoid constant conflict in our travels," Ivan explained. Isaac started to argue again, but Ivan cut him off. "Look, if we have to be fighting bigots in every single town in addition to monsters outside the towns, how are we going to finish our quest? We'd never get any rest. Besides, getting into a debate or fight about it will really slow us down, and we can't afford that, right?"

Isaac considered this for a second. "Well…I suppose you're right… Our ability to continue our quest comes before this…But that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

Ivan grinned. "Come on. You don't have to get so defensive about this. You're right; they're idiotic bigots, but you can't argue with all of them and expect to still live your life." Ivan pulled Isaac closer and leaned into the earth adept's embrace.

"I guess I just get a little overzealous about protecting my friends sometimes," Isaac said, his voice softening as he tightened his arms around an extremely content Ivan.

"And it's wonderful," Ivan said, all but purring as the two sat in each others' arms. "Just try to cool it a little, especially when it comes to things where it may be an ongoing conflict."

"I'll do it so we can catch Saturos…and for you," Isaac said, nuzzling his face in Ivan's beautiful, blond hair. He then joked, "But will you promise me that we can go on a gay rights crusade after this is all over?"

Ivan laughed, but said nothing.

~o~o~o~

Sorry about being away for so long, but college was kicking my butt and Christmas break was way too crazy to get any work done on this. I'll try to do better in the future, but as plans always go awry, it's hard to promise anything. One thing I will promise is that reviews both make my day and serve as motivation to get me moving, so if you haven't written one, know that it'll be appreciated. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.


	8. The Summon

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Summon

"It's strange…" Ivan muttered as the party walked through the silent city of Kolima.

"What?" Garet asked.

"This city…so quiet," Ivan replied, as he looked wearily through the clearings of the village, worried eyes passing over each of the human-shaped trees. "Quieter than any city I've ever been to."

"We were lucky," Garet said flatly. "And that's what has me confused. That form of psynergy that we used… That's far stranger than the city. I've always had to fight hard to master any new psynergy. I've never had something pop up like that with such success."

"I think it was a unique situation," Isaac responded, still wondering what had happened. As the three had entered Kolima and discovered that the rumors of the curse turning people into trees were true, they had been paralyzed by a mental attack. Then, before they could recover, a strange, glittering dust they assumed to be the source of the curse had fallen from the sky. A strange, blue shield had appeared all around them and protected them from the dust. Afterwards, they had found that the source of the curse was a giant and powerful tree named Tret. They had decided to comb the town for any "survivors" of the curse before setting off to investigate Tret's situation.

"What do you mean, Isaac?" Ivan asked.

"Well, I don't remember the details, but I think I remember Kraden explaining something like this during our studies of Psynergy. It's like Garet said earlier about our ability to strike critical. Some psynergy acts outside of our control. I think Kraden mentioned that psynergy also automatically dulls incoming psynergy attacks to a certain extent and protects you entirely from psynergy when it's being used by an ally. That's why when some of the more powerful monsters that use psynergy against us, it doesn't burn us to a crisp so easily, as it would a normal person."

"I guess that makes sense. I never really thought about why my powerful wind or lightning attacks never seemed to affect you guys," Ivan said, looking pensive.

"Ya…I remember something like that," Garet said. "I knew we couldn't actually hurt each other with psynergy unless we were actually aiming for each other, but I forgot the specific reasons why."

"Always the academic," Ivan observed, laughing.

~o~

Isaac focused his psynergy into his new djinni, Granite. He felt the djinni's power fuse with his own and he released the psynergy. As he watched a bright gold shield appeared around each of the three fighters.

Garet paused as he noted a rat warrior's attack barely scratch him as the shield diverted its attack and he dispatched it before it could regain its balance. Meanwhile two monsters closed in on Ivan, but their attacks seemed to barely break the skin and after a flash of purple lightning, only black dust remained, slowly drifting to the ground in the now silent forest clearing.

"Wow, Isaac," Garet marveled. "That's a powerful Djinni."

"Definitely," Ivan agreed. "I guess each djinni has different abilities that they're able to use."

Isaac nodded, staring at the little brown guy now waiting to be summoned on his shoulder. "That'll be extremely useful. Does that ability block psynergy, too?"

"Yes, it does," the djinni responded, pleased. "It will significantly dull all attacks made against you. Unfortunately, it only works for a short period, so you'll have to time it carefully in order to make the most of my ability."

"Very cool. I'll keep that in mind," Isaac said. "So now that there are two of you, I can summon you both at once for a more powerful attack, right?"

"Yes," Flint said, popping up on Isaac's shoulder. "But it's hard to explain how exactly that works, so you'll just have to summon us together and see."

Several loud cries announced the arrival of another wave of monsters.

"I guess this is your chance then, guys," Isaac said, already preparing to summon.

As Isaac focused his power, Ivan blasted the first few skeletons with a wave of wind, knocking them back, giving Isaac more time. Garet sent a wave of fireballs to further soften the monsters up, as they had for previous summon spells.

Isaac felt a surge of power as the djinn finally readied their combined attack and he stood back to watch, expecting the two djinn to fly towards their opponents as he had seen Flint do before.

But they didn't. Glowing a deep golden light, the two danced around each other as they flew up into the air between the party and the group of monsters and when they met there was a flash of light so bright, Isaac had to cover his eyes.

When he looked again, his jaw dropped. A massive stone statue reminiscent of an ancient culture towered over the clearing, covered in ornate decorations of jade, gold, and deep red paint. A sandstorm seemed to rage around them, despite the fact that they weren't anywhere near a desert and the only thing that moved other than the fleeing monsters was the massive, floating fist of the statue. It floated in an almost gentle circle before crashing down onto the ground, sending shockwaves through the earth, causing all the monsters to fall to the ground.

The pounding also seemed to loose giant stone shards from the roof of the world, crashing down around the clearing. Monsters were crushed where they cowered and just as the dust seemed to begin to settle, the statue's fist lunged forward, blasting monsters in every direction, exploding with what seemed to be pure earth energy, releasing yet another blinding flash.

And then it was gone.

Isaac stared dumbfounded at the strangely undisturbed clearing. The only thing that seemed to have been affected by the summon were the monsters, which had been utterly obliterated, leaving no trace.

That and he seemed to be filled with a surge of energy that seemed to be the remnants of the summon, and he felt his earth psynergy surging with power, ready to be used. While Isaac had noticed this before when summoning, the feeling was quite a bit greater this time.

Suddenly an image of the giant statue flashed into his mind and a word formed on his lips. A name.

"Ramses," he whispered, knowing that this was the name of whatever he had summoned, although not knowing how he knew.

He looked at Ivan and Garet and they both looked back at him with about the same look as he assumed he had.

"Wow," Garet muttered, the first to snap out of it. "Now I want to find my second djinni!" he said, sounding excited. "That was amazing."

"Yes," Ivan agreed. "To both accounts. I don't see how Saturos and Menardi are going to be able to stand up to _that_ kind of power."

"You're right," Isaac responded, now noticing the extra earth power he felt before draining from him, but still pleased with how long the effect had lasted. For the first time, Isaac begun to think that they had a real chance the next time the met Saturos and his crew. He had been hoping that something would come along as time went on…and something had happened. Something very big and very encouraging.

"Well, let's get a move on then!" Isaac finally said, his mood significantly lightened. "We're not achieving anything just sitting here contemplating it."

"Okay. I'll take lead again then," Garet said. "By the way, you should figure out how often the Djinn can handle a summon like that. It seems like they're going to be tired for quite a while before they can be used again. Longer than they have been when we summoned them."

"Okay," Isaac answered, doing a mental check on the power he could normally feel the djinn feeding him. It felt like even more of his normal power was absent than he was used to after summoning, as the Djinn, together, had improved his abilities quite a bit more than Flint had alone.

"We're going to have to carefully manage the Djinn in the future," Ivan said, grabbing Isaac's hand as the two followed Garet. "You're back to your normal self now."

"What do you mean?" Isaac asked, curious.

"When you first got Granite, I noticed a slight difference about you. Nothing about your personality, but something about your movements… They seemed more fluid and more confident. You seemed almost more…heroic, I guess," Ivan explained, shrugging. "And now you're back to normal."

Isaac laughed. "Me? Heroic?"

"Yes," Ivan said, squeezing Isaac's hand lovingly. "Of course, you're always a hero to me, but it was more obvious. I think Garet noticed it, too, although you know he would never mention anything like that."

"So why does that mean we have to be careful?" Isaac asked, somewhat pleased.

"Because you're a better fighter when your djinn are "set" or whatever. And it was a much larger increase when you went from one to two," Ivan explained.

"I think you're right…" Isaac agreed. "Oh, and the boost in power we experience is far more noticeable."

Ivan grinned and said, "That's exciting, although using this power will have its trade-offs so as I said before, we do need to be careful. We're naturally going to start getting used to our abilities when we aren't actively utilizing our djinn, and we need to make sure that we're prepared and aren't caught off-guard when we use our summons."

"Good thinking. As our powers become more complex, it's that kind of thinking that will allow us to overcome Saturos and Menardi," Isaac said, thoughtful. He then dropped into a more tender tone and whispered, "And I hope I'll always have you to help the group with this stuff. It seems to come easily to you."

"I hope so, too," Ivan responded, pulling Isaac closer.

Then the two were interrupted by Garet yelling, "Incoming!"

"Shall we get to it, then?" Isaac said, dropping Ivan's hand and drawing his sword.

"We shall," Ivan said, planting a short kiss on Isaac's cheek before following the earth adept to help their friend.

~o~o~o~

Thanks for reading and reviewing if you do.


	9. The Climb

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Climb

Ivan reached a hand down to the struggling earth adept below him. Grinning gratefully, Isaac allowed himself to be pulled up to the next branch.

Then Isaac collapsed onto the branch to regain his breath. Ivan turned to help the Mars adept and found him equally exhausted.

"Man, how tall _is_ this tree?" Garet panted as he sat down, panting, next to Isaac.

"I don't think it's much taller," Ivan answered looking up towards the sky. "And there's got to be a place inside this tree where we can find the real Tret."

"I hope your guess is right, Ivan," Isaac replied. "This climb isn't exactly easy."

"Well, I'm not finding it all that hard," Ivan laughed.

Ivan heard Garet angrily mutter something involving Jupiter adepts and butterflies, but decided to ignore it. The other two were unsure of Ivan's idea, but Ivan was sure that the kind side of Tret hid somewhere in the tree based on when he had tried to read Tret's mind. They had decided to search the tree but had yet to have any luck.

"You guys go ahead and rest here then. I'm going to scout ahead for a bit," Ivan told the other two. His only answer was a pair of exhausted nods, so he immediately started climbing a vine to the next branch.

The other two weren't as nimble as he was and they had been struggling with the climbing. _Their heavy weapons don't help, either_, he thought somewhat smugly, thinking about how much lighter his Bandit's Sword was compared to their massive long swords. But he also knew that they were able to overcome more because of their different styles.

A large spider suddenly jumped out from under a nearby leaf. Ivan dodged out of the way, all but leaping off the tree, but instead grabbing a branch and swinging around to the spider's flank, all the while focusing to ready an attack. As he landed back on the tree, he loosed a blast of wind at the spider, throwing it to the ground far below.

Straightening his cloak around his shoulders, Ivan continued walking along the branch, looking around for entrances to the main trunk and ways to get to the higher branches.

Suddenly he stopped. He felt…something. Ivan closed his eyes, trying to identify the mysterious source of wind Psynergy he was sensing. "A djinni?" he wondered aloud to no one in particular.

"That's what I would guess," Gust answered suddenly, popping up on his shoulder.

"Think we can take it?" Ivan asked, already used to the djinni's sudden appearance as he focused to identify where the other djinni was.

"Sure! Let's go for it," Gust answered confidently.

Ivan grinned at the djinni's enthusiasm and grabbed the next vine, heading up to the next branch, where he knew his newest djinni waited for him.

~o~

Isaac and Garet put their back to each other, trying not to leave any gaps in their guard as the veritable sea of monsters converged on them. Once Ivan had left, the monsters had steadily increased in frequency and now they were overwhelmed.

Isaac parried a blow from the troll in front of him and ducked under its axe to slice it across the stomach, but as it cried out and fell to the side, a rat soldier jumped straight over the dying Troll to press the attack. He heard Garet shout, followed by a loud sizzling sound behind him as he beheaded the overly aggressive rat warrior.

Then the clashing of steel resumed from behind and Isaac begun to wonder whether they'd get out of this alive. He also wondered if Ivan would get away…

_I really hope that he's safe…_ Isaac thought fervently as he finished off a spider with a thrust into its eight eyes.

But there was no stemming the tide. "Let's try to get to that vine!" Isaac yelled to Garet over the inane screaming of the monsters around them.

"They're just going to surround us there, too!" Garet shouted back.

"Yes, but they won't be able to come at us as quickly, so it might buy us some time," Isaac responded.

"What do you want me to do?" Garet asked, still struggling to keep a vicious Gnome from overwhelming him.

"Clear a path with Psynergy and be ready to run," Isaac ordered. "Okay. Three, two, one, NOW!"

Isaac send a shockwave through the branches, sending them writhing through the air, causing most of the monsters on that section of the branch to fall to the forest floor and Garet quickly followed up with a wave of blood-red flames to finish off the remaining monsters.

Isaac dodged away from the pair of drone bees chasing him and sprinted towards the vine they had just cleared. Garet was right behind him. The tree stabilized where they ran, but the moving branches continued to keep the monsters off-balance, giving the two warriors a small lead.

Grabbing the tough leaves on the vine and climbing for everything he was worth, Isaac also managed to find the concentration to drop a giant spire of earth on the troll trying to drop down on them, sending him flying away from the vine and into empty space. He blinked as nothing but harmless dirt rained down on him.

"Are your djinn going to be ready to summon Ramses any time soon?" Garet asked as he joined Isaac on the vine.

"No, they're still recovering from the earlier summon that allowed us to get up to the branch we just left," Isaac responded.

"Damn!" Garet swore. "I'm dry on psynergy; I won't be able to hold them off much longer." He swung his sword, striking a rat warrior that had gotten too close to the vine.

"I've barely got enough to heal a simple wound…" Isaac sighed, beyond desperation.

"We are so –"

"Gust, Breeze, go!" a voice cried.

Isaac looked towards the source of the voice, already knowing who it was.

Ivan was holding onto a vine and swinging down towards him, his _two_ djinn flying ahead of him, preparing to summon.

_Wow…_ Isaac thought, now smiling, as he watched his boyfriend swing in on a vine like a madman while performing a complex piece of summoning Psynergy. _He's so amazing sometimes_.

The two djinn united in the air, releasing a bright, green light that then revealed a beautiful goddess dressed in a white and gold sash. Her deep green hair was decorated with a large jade headpiece shaped like a pair of wings. Dozens of arrows that seemed to be made of pure light appeared around her, frozen in the air. She then took notice of the monsters and with a wave of her arms, the arrows all leapt towards their waiting victims as if leaping from an army of invisible bows.

When the arrows struck, nothing was spared. Drone bees dissolved into dust in midflight as they were pierced with the golden arrows of light. Trolls were disintegrated in midstride. Rat soldiers barely had time to look shocked before they, too, evaporated.

Isaac, despite having wielded similar power a few times before, was still impressed. Garet was dumbstruck again, but managed to cling limply to the vine.

As Ivan dropped onto the branch just below the vine Garet and Isaac were on, his two djinn floated gently down to rejoin him.

"Atalanta," Ivan explained simply as the two slid down the vine to him.

"Well…very different, but similar in power," Isaac observed. "It will be a big advantage to have two summons to use in battle."

"Definitely," Ivan responded.

"I hate you two," Garet muttered sullenly. "When am I going to get _my_ second djinni..."

"I bet you'll get it soon enough, Garet," Isaac comforted.

~o~

"I swear, Ivan. There's nothing here!" Garet exclaimed for about the third time.

Ivan looked around, confused. "There must be something here…"

"I think Garet might be right, Ivan," Isaac responded. "I honestly don't think there's anything here we haven't already seen."

Ivan closed his eyes, seeming to think something through. When he opened them, he walked over to kneel by a pit in the floor covered by a spider web.

"I wonder…" he whispered, barely audible as he knelt by the crevice, looking carefully at the large leaves scattered throughout the web and the floor below.

"So how do we get out of here?" Garet asked, going to the nearby exit to the outside and trying to see a way down. "This place is like a maze…a mid-air maze…"

Suddenly Ivan jumped onto one of the leaves. "Come on, I think I know what we're looking for."

"Come off it, Ivan," Garet snapped angrily.

Isaac watched as Ivan carefully jumped from one leaf to another as he counted quietly. "Ivan…careful," he warned, concerned about the drop to the floor below, which they had survived before, but Isaac didn't want to take unnecessary risks.

"Isaac, I know exactly what I'm doing," Ivan responded with a wink. He stopped on a leaf and then looked carefully at the path he had taken. "Yup, this should be it." He then started jumping up and down on the leaf, seemingly trying to break it.

"Ivan!" Isaac cried worriedly, running to the edge of the gap in the floor.

"Come help me," the wind adept requested. "Hey Garet, this should help us get out really quickly if we're careful not to fall too fast."

"Are you insane?" Garet yelled.

"Of course–" Then the leaf gave and Ivan disappeared from sight, his final word trailing off, "Noooooooooooooooooot!"

"Ivan!" Isaac yelled, already jumping from leaf to leaf to the hole.

"Isaac, wait," he heard Garet say, but Isaac leapt down the hole before Garet could stop him.

As Isaac fell, he heard Garet above him mutter, "Crap…" followed loudly by "AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

For a second, Isaac couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

Then reality hit him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" he screamed, joining in with Garet as they fell to their apparent doom.

After a about twenty seconds of pure terror, Isaac hit something soft that dampened his landing, but forced the air from his lungs. While he tried to catch his breath, he felt Garet land next to him and they both bounced a few times before coming to a stop.

"You know, I thought these leaves were oddly thick," a voice observed, barely containing laughter.

Isaac sat up and gave a grinning Ivan a dirty look. He heard Garet grunt something containing a few colorful words about wind adepts and fairies, but ignored it and climbed off the leaf.

"So where are we?" Isaac asked while Garet glowered at Ivan and straightened his clothes.

"I think we're just below the floor we first entered on," Ivan explained. "I've been watching those holes in the center of the floor and I figured that something might be down here, and when we reached the top and there wasn't a simple hole in the same position, I figured we might be able to get down here by riding that leaf."

The two only answered with a pair of dumbfounded stares.

"And," Ivan continued, "I think we found what we've been looking for." The wind adept pointed behind them.

Isaac turned and found himself almost face-to-face with Tret…again. However, this Tret's eyes were closed, and he seemed to be sleeping calmly.

"You were right then…" Isaac muttered. "Great thinking there."

Garet grunted, still irritated, but then added, more sincerely, "Well done."

Ivan nodded, pleased, but then his face grew a determined look. "Let's just do what we came here for: awakening the kind side of Tret."

"I should have trusted you there," Isaac said, going to Ivan and grasping his hand for a few seconds.

"It's fine," Ivan murmured, his face softening. "Let's get this done and then we can spend some time together again." Isaac nodded and turned back to Tret.

The three slowly walked up to Tret, unsure of what to do.

Tret mumbled something inaudible, his voice softer, but then he opened his eyes and glared angrily at them.

"You!" the great tree boomed.

The party jumped, all surprised at the sudden change of events.

"You hoped to find my kindly self? Fools!" the great tree rumbled, obviously no different from the Tret they had met outside. "You should never have come here, and now, you shall never leave! Your powers protected you in the forest, but now you are in the heart of my power! Here, you will all become trees, and you'll wither with the rest of us!"

Then Tret's face _lept_ at them, bringing his full power to bear on the three adepts.

~o~o~o~

Yay! I managed to update in a reasonable amount of time! I actually already have most of the next chapter written (this chapter was going on crazy long so I chopped it in half) so you can expect a reasonably quick update. That means the next chapter will be another action chapter, but I'm hoping I'm writing it well enough people look forward to that as much as the romance. Thanks for reading and reviewing if you choose to do so.


	10. The Tree

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Tree

Vines grew out of the walls unnaturally fast and started grabbing at the adepts as Tret bowled them over, his face now a massive, floating head. Ivan was the first to his feet, slashing at the vines attempting to grab hold of him. Isaac, too, managed to break free and immediately drew his sword to ward off the writhing vines. Garet reacted slower and found his arms pinned to his side.

"Help!" Garet screamed as the vines begun to tighten around his body.

"Go help him!" Isaac commanded, now fully in his leader role. "I'll keep Tret busy."

As Ivan ran to Garet's side, Isaac called upon Flint's power and jumped towards Tret, his sword glowing a golden light. The floating head attempted to dodge, but the blow landed and Tret was thrown back against the wall. Isaac gasped as he noticed that his attack had barely left a scratch.

Tret shouted something incoherent and suddenly massive brambles grew out of the ground around Isaac, suspending him helplessly in the air. He cried out as large thorns pierced his leather armor. He struggled to find purchase in the mass of green spikes, but had no luck.

Then, with a loud sizzle, the branches burnt to a crisp around him and he dropped to the ground, untouched by the flames.

He threw a quick thanks to Garet, who was responsible for the liberating flames, and looked up to see Ivan shooting wave after wave of bright lightning bolts at Tret. Isaac noticed another wave of vines descending around the three, so he quickly unleashed Granite's power to protect them. He also noticed Garet's djinni, Forge, fly over him, bolstering his strength and Breeze, the latest addition to their team, setting up a weak ward against Psynergy around them.

The three closed in on Tret, trying to box the tree's main head in as the vines failed to find purchase on Granite's shield. Ivan jumped forward, Gust following behind, infusing the wind adept's sword with a purple light. The blow landed hard, leaving a massive gash across Tret's face.

The tree howled in pain, but showed no sign of slowing. He unleashed a wave of bright white spores throughout the area.

Isaac quickly drew a deep breath before putting his sleeve over his mouth to avoid breathing in the spores, but the other two weren't so lucky. Ivan, who had taken the spores at point-blank range, slumped over, suddenly all but snoring and Garet was left little better. The vines leapt down at this chance now that Granite's shield was gone and begun wrap around the adepts. Still holding his breath to avoid breathing the spores still clinging to the air, Isaac slashed at the vines trying to grab him, keeping them at bay. The other two adepts only lied helplessly as the vines wrapped around them.

Isaac drew on his two Djinn's power to unleash Ramses. A sandstorm filled the room, banishing the sleeping spores from the air and causing many vines to lose their grip on Isaac's allies. As Ramses brought down a massive wave of rocks on top of Tret, Isaac ran over to Garet to wake him.

"Garet! Garet, wake up!" he shouted at the top of his voice as he cut the fire adept free. The red-haired swordsman opened his eyes, blinking a few times before jumping to his feet.

"Sorry. I don't know what came over me," Garet apologized.

"Just go keep Tret busy while I save Ivan," Isaac commanded, and Garet moved towards Tret without question, already preparing to summon Mars.

Ramses' attack completed, throwing Tret back away from the sleeping wind adept. As the sandstorm subside, Garet enaged the great floating head. Isaac ran towards his boyfriend, pushed on by worry. While he ran, he healed the wounds the thorns had left earlier, knowing that his Psynergy stores were already dangerously short. Tret's attack had come on too unexpectedly and the three hadn't rested or prepared.

Isaac reached Ivan to find that he was fully awake and struggling against the vines dragging him on the ground. Isaac sliced through the vines with his sword, releasing the wind adept. Ivan sat up, choking as most of the vines fell lifelessly from around him.

Isaac pulled Ivan to his feet and cast another bout of healing Psynergy to heal the bruises left by Tret's vines.

Ivan said nothing, still trying to catch his breath, but gave Isaac a tender look that made words unnecessary.

Dropping Ivan's hand, Isaac turned back to the battle. Garet's fire Psynergy seemed to especially effective against the tree. He had created a wreath of flames around himself to fend off attacks while he focused on casting Psynergy directly at Tret. But Isaac knew he was beginning to run out of power; perhaps Ivan could keep up such an impressive display of Psynergy, but not Garet.

Isaac quickly ran to assist, fending off the occasional attack of yet more vines that Tret seemed to be able to summon endlessly. As Isaac neared, Garet unleashed a huge pillar of lava from the ground underneath Tret, engulfing the floating head whole.

The flames floating through the air dissipated and Isaac skidded to a halt to stand next to Garet, facing the pillar of lava now containing their foe.

"That won't finish him," Garet muttered exhaustedly. "I couldn't do much alone and with just my sword, so I had to pull an Ivan, but it left me totally dry."

Isaac nodded and dropped into a battle stance as the pillar of flames fell.

The great tree was now tiring. Most of his face was charred, and there were several large gouges where the physical blows had been struck.

"Okay, let's move in three, two…"

But Isaac was interrupted by Ivan shouting "Atalanta, now!"

The two swordsmen turned to see Atalanta floating near the roof of the room, and as they watched, a volley of golden arrows thicker than the vines around them rained down on Tret.

Tret took several hits, trying not to fall, but then the arrows started to pierce through him, leaving huge holes. As the last arrow landed and Atlanta disappeared, Tret fell to the ground, no longer able to keep himself aloft.

All the vines in the room begun to recede, a few grabbing the great face of the tree, pulling it back to the space it had left.

Ivan walked over to the other two and Isaac used the last of his Psynergy to heal the couple of wounds Garet had received.

"What now?" the fire adept asked as he sheathed his sword.

"I don't know…" Isaac answered, turning to where Tret's face now slept.

"At least we have a way out," Ivan said as he joined them. At the others' questioning looks, he motione to a group of vines curling around from the hole they had entered from, giving them a ladder of sorts.

"Let's take a closer look at Tret first, though," Isaac said worriedly. "I don't think he's dead, but..."

The three walked together closer to the face. Isaac noticed that it seemed to be slowly, but steadily healing itself.

Tret opened his eyes calmly and asked, "What has happened to me?"

Isaac exchanged surprised looks with the other two.

"Was I…" the tree muttered, looking thoughtfully into the distance as if he was trying to recall something from long ago. "I see… My heart was lost in rage."

He then fixed the three with a gentle gaze. "And you defeated the evil within me?"

The three nodded, a bit stunned by the sudden change.

"Thank you," Tret said gratefully. "I could not leave the world with so much evil in my heart. I am free to leave the world without regrets. Goodbye, great warriors."

"Hey! Wait a minute! We can't let Tret die like this!" Garet insisted as the tree closed its eyes.

"That's right, Isaac. We still need his help," Ivan agreed.

Isaac nodded.

"…What?" the great tree asked, surprised. "Why have you not left me to my dying? Do you need something?"

"Yes," Isaac answered firmly. "You still need to release the curse you placed on the people of Kolima, turning them into trees."

"I turned the people of Kolima into trees?" the tree asked, concerned. "Hroom! I must release them before they die with the forest!"

Tret closed his eyes and the three adepts watched, amazed, as he released what seemed to be powerful Psynergy…that then fizzled out.

The tree opened his eyes and fixed them with a gaze full of sorrow. "I can't do it…" he explained. "My power no longer reaches Kolima… People of Kolima…" he pleaded to the air, voice fading. "Forgive me…"

Tret's face then melted into the surrounding wood, disappearing from sight.

Garet furrowed his brow, frustrated. "Tret's too weak! He doesn't have the power to save Kolima."

"No!" Ivan yelled angrily. "We have to heal him! We can't let the people of Kolima die with the forest!"

"Every life in Kolima depends on us!" Garet enthused.

"We have to restore Tret and save the people of Kolima!" Ivan agreed, determined.

Isaac closed his eyes, thinking carefully, trying to think of a way to save the great tree.

"Perhaps we should ask Laurel if she has any ideas," Isaac finally said. "Either way, standing here won't help anyone. Let's go see what we can find out."

~o~o~o~

First of all, thanks go to prettypriestess for betaing this chapter.

I never realized how saturated with exclamation marks the normal Golden Sun dialogue is. 0.o I've tried to stay away from including much dialogue directly from the game, but some conversations are necessary in order to avoid forcing people to play the game while reading, and I want to stick with canon for the places where I'm not filling in the gaps of the story. Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews, as always, are welcome. The next chapter will actually be romance, I promise! =P


	11. The Leader

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Leader

Ivan leaned back against the tree, listening carefully to the night around him. Isaac, Ivan, and Garet had been traveling hard to make up for lost time, since their little adventure in Kolima had taken more time than they expected. Ivan hadn't been able to get much from Laurel's mind, as she was too consumed in grief. Worse, what he had gotten was a vague thought of Mercury Lighthouse and waters drying up. The three hadn't been able to figure out exactly what she was thinking about, but they had decided that continuing to Mercury Lighthouse was the best course of action, both in their goal to save Tret and to catch up with Saturos and Menardi.

Ivan sighed as he realized that there was a sound missing in the night: the sound of Isaac's soft breathing as he slept. He had been concerned for his boyfriend over this since they had left Kolima. Every night, Isaac seemed to barely sleep, yet in the morning, he always acted alert and intent as he always did. But when Isaac thought no one was looking, the truth came out: a weariness crept into his stance and movements that spoke of worry and exhaustion.

Closing his eyes, Ivan fought with himself over simply reading Isaac's mind to find out what was going on. Isaac would be able to sense the psynergy, but then again, Isaac had seemed to not mind as much as he had when they first met. But it might be better to talk it out.

_That's what lovers are suppose to do, right?_ Ivan thought and then cleared his throat.

"If you can't get over whatever has been keeping you up, you should talk about it," Ivan said loudly enough for Isaac to hear. He wasn't worried about Garet; the man slept like a stump.

Isaac rolled over and said not at all sleepily, "Is it really so obvious to you?"

"The lack of snoring gives it away," Ivan teased.

"I don't snore," Isaac stated flatly as he sat up to give Ivan an annoyed glare.

Ivan walked over and pulled the Isaac to his feet with a small laugh. "Lighten up. It's probably not a matter of life and death, so tell me about it. You talk. I listen. Simple."

"But it is a matter of life and death," Isaac said quietly. "Everything is a matter of life and death now. We've set out on this quest to prevent people from destroying the world, and we're finding out that the world isn't so well off to begin with. So on top of having to keep on chasing Saturos, we have to help who we can along the way, since so much has happened now.

"Look at everything so far: Mt. Aleph erupted, thieves struck in Vault, Master Hammet was kidnapped, the bridge to Kaylay was blown up, and Tret's curse turned all of Kolima into trees. And on top of that, we're out here in the middle of nowhere, miles and miles away from the closest civilization, surrounded by monsters that are out for our blood. At every step, we face death and destruction and we have to avert it."

Isaac's voice had risen to a crescendo to the point where he was all but shouting at the end. In response, Ivan took Isaac's hand in his own and led him away from Garet, to avoid any further outbreaks waking up the third adept.

After a time, he responded, "And yet, that isn't what you're losing sleep over."

Isaac grunted and looked away, and they walked around in silence for a time, Ivan guiding him in a circle around the camp so as not to completely abandon the watch. Ivan contented himself with simply squeezing Isaac's hand as they walked together in silence.

Finally, Isaac sighed. "No, it isn't," he admitted. He paused and then explained, "What I'm losing sleep over isn't that we and others are in danger; I'm losing sleep over the fact that I have to make the life and death decisions. The weight of all that is on my shoulders. I know all three of us are in this together, but I'm the leader. I have to make sure we survive 'til morning. I have to make sure we don't get killed by the next monster. I have to help some people and not others so that I can save the most. I have to make everything right, and it's just…"

"…overwhelming?" Ivan supplied.

"That'd be an understatement," Isaac replied. "You're better at psynergy than I am and Garet is the better fighter. I can heal all right, but there are adepts in Vale who specialize in healing that are much better. How can I lead when I'm not the strongest or the smartest?"

"Because you're the bravest," Ivan said simply. "And because you are."

"What?"

Ivan sighed. "You are a leader, Isaac. Real leaders aren't there because they're the strongest, the smartest, or even the bravest. Real leader inspire people. They…well, lead. People are willing to follow them. They don't have all the answers like people usually think they do. Most of the time, all you have to do to be an effective leader is to listen to the problem and the offered solution and say, 'I think that sounds like a great idea and I think you're the right person to do it.'

"And to find the right people for the right job," Ivan finished wryly. "There is some know-how to it. But it's not like you need to know how people do things. You don't need to know how Garet and I do what we do in battle; you just need to see how we need to work together with you, and get us all to do it."

Isaac considered this for a second before he responded, "But that's so… I mean… I'm not even doing anything!"

Ivan smiled. "That's what I told Master Hammet when he explained that to me. Then I sat in on some of his meetings with his soldiers, his merchants, and the people of Kaylay. And really, that was all there was to it."

"Okay, fine, I can lead, since that's really all I do right now," Isaac relented. "But that doesn't help me when I have to make a decision that may end up with Garet or me dead." And then, more softly, "Or you."

"Well, there's nothing to help you with that but this," Ivan answered, tapping Isaac's forehead. "And this." He put his hand over Isaac's heart. "And…this."

The last, Ivan supplied with a kiss.

When they drew apart, Ivan looked up into a huge smile. "Tell me," Isaac laughed. "How did I ever live without you?" He bent into another kiss, and Ivan leaned against a tree as Isaac dove voraciously into his mouth.

"The same way I did:" Ivan answered when given a chance. "Poorly."

~o~

Garet stalked through the bushes, angry at waking to find not only Ivan not manning his post, but Isaac missing as well. He knew they had a tendency to go off a bit on their own, but they should also know they shouldn't go beyond sight of camp at night. Seeing no sign of them, he continued searching. Finally, as he circled around towards the other side of the camp, he heard soft whispering coming from ahead.

Careful to step loudly on several twigs, and moving several branches away unnecessarily hard to give away his entrance so he could hopefully avoid walking in on anything embarrassing, Garet moved towards the whispers.

The whispers ceased immediately, and as he rounded a tree, Garet found Isaac pulling Ivan to his feet, both their clothes and hair in complete disarray.

"You two didn't –" Garet begun to ask but instead said, "Wait. I don't want to know." He gave himself an internal high five for the looks on their faces. "Whatever you've been up to, you should have stayed in camp, and Isaac, you should have been sleeping. How are you going to take over watch now?"

"Uh…" Ivan muttered.

"I can still take second watch, Garet," Isaac immediately supplied, visibly forcing his face into a calm smile, as if Garet hadn't walked in on them rolling around on the ground like a pair of hormone-crazed teenagers. "Ivan thought he spotted something just now and wanted backup while checking it. But it was just a false alarm, and we about to head back to camp."

"And Ivan, uh… tripped?" Garet asked, barely suppressing a laugh.

Isaac forced a laugh and answered, "Basically, yeah. Come on. We need to get back to camp so you two can sleep."

"Sounds good," Garet agreed. "Let's go."

Garet turned and lead the way back to camp, and heard the two lovebirds whispering.

"Are you sure you're up for taking your turn? I could –"

"No, I can handle it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Okay…"

"I'm _fine_."

"If you say so."

He then heard the wet sounds indicating a kiss. He considered making a loud gagging sound, but decided against it. They really _were_ a pair of hormone-crazed teenagers, so it wasn't entirely their fault. He wasn't sure he'd be any better in their situation, but he hoped he could at least kiss more quietly.

After a few more moments, Isaac and Ivan finally caught up to him and the three walked into camp together. Garet and Ivan got ready to sleep and Isaac took up the post by the tree and sleep took Garet before Isaac was fully settled in.

~o~

The three traveled west, passing the barricade and moving on towards Bilibin. Shortly before arriving, they turned north and soon found the road. Leaving the sparse forests that filled the area around Kolima behind, they now walked through large plains with only rare copses and small, wooded areas far off in the distance, beyond which, they knew, lay a large forest.

Monsters seemed to attack more and more often as they got further north. They arrived at a bridge to find a large group of rat soldiers blocking the way, but that was the only significant fight they had during their trek north, as although there were more, the monsters here were still less powerful than those who had arisen in Kolima Forest.

Finding the river that indicated the cave that led through to the north, they followed it to find a forested mountain still clinging to the edges of winter. While Kolima and Bilibin were well into spring, here most trees still carried no indication of new growth and snow was apparent only a little above them in the mountains.

They followed a small path through the trees to a large cliff face with nothing but a small opening. Garet lit a torch and the three entered the cave, already wary.

~o~

Isaac leapt back from the skeletons engaging him and slashed back as they moved forward to press the attack. To his left, Garet downed a troll and turned to a second that had come with the first. There was a bright flash and suddenly only one skeleton stood before him, the other nothing more than dust in the air. Isaac was now the one pushing forward as the skeleton was forced back.

Then a chill breeze hit Isaac like a hammer blow and he fell back, dazed. The skeleton took advantage, slashing through his guard and catching him hard in the side. Isaac tried to step back to give him time to recover, but tripped and found himself on the ground, the skeleton standing over him.

As the skeleton raised a lethal blow, Isaac heard a familiar shout and blinked, not understanding what he saw.

One second, the skeleton was raising its sword, the next, it was lying on the ground in pieces and Ivan stood over him.

"What the…" Isaac started, but gasped as a white-hot knife seemed to drive into his side.

Ivan turned and looked down at Isaac, fear filling his violet eyes.

"Can you…? No, probably not," Ivan said, his voice colored with as much fear as his eyes.

Suddenly Gust popped up on Ivan's shoulder, and Isaac felt a djinni appear on his own shoulder. He saw some light flashing, but it seemed to not matter much. A ring around his vision was getting dark, too, but he didn't care. All he really wanted was to sleep now.

"Go on, Ivan. Heal him." Flint's voice.

"But…how?"

"I'm giving you the power," Flint explained. Isaac felt pain, but it was …lessening…coming farther off. "You've seen Isaac do it before. Just focus as you would when casting any psynergy and draw the power of earth from me. Direct it into him and will it to heal him as you'd will the wind to do something."

"Okay, I'll tr– I'll do it," Ivan responded. Isaac sensed what he thought was earth-based psynergy, but he couldn't be sure. His mind seemed to be slipping away, just like his vision. Now all he could see was Ivan's face. "I'll do it," he heard Ivan whispering to himself. "Don't try. Do."

Suddenly Isaac's vision blurred out and then bloomed, showing him a concerned Ivan leaning over him. He felt the haze lift off his mind and he realized what had just happened.

"Did I almost?"

"No," Ivan answered firmly. Then, "Well…maybe… But you're all right now. I…healed your wounds somehow. I'm not sure I understand it."

"You cast earth psynergy," Isaac said, confused. "I felt it. I think."

"He did," Garet said, joining Ivan to stand over Isaac. "I felt it, too. How did you do that, Ivan?"

"Uh… Flint and Gust just exchanged places and suddenly I felt…well, it's hard to explain. I felt…a new power surging within me. It was kind of like my normal psynergy, but different. Calmer and more gentle than wind. But in its own way, just as powerful."

Isaac shook his head, trying to clear the last remnants of the wound and pushed himself to his feet, and then noticed something similar. It almost seemed like it swarmed around him in a storm. Flying over and under and through itself, weaving in and out in impossibly complex patterns.

"I'm getting something, too, but different," Isaac said. "It's wild and crazy…is that wind psynergy?"

"I think so," Ivan answered. "Gust?"

"Yes, I can supply another adept with the ability to use wind psynergy in the same way I can give you the ability to control more of it," the djinni explained. "And Flint just did the same for you."  
"So we could use this to enhance our powers?" Garet asked.

" 'Change your powers' would be more accurate," Flint answered.

"Interesting," Ivan mused. "We should experiment with this. It could be useful in combat. What if we exchanged djinn in the middle of combat? It would completely throw our opponents off guard."

Gust shook his head. "That probably isn't possible. Our psynergy bond with you is complicated, and if you're actively using psynergy at the time, it can be all but impossible to shift it to another person. And usually it will take more time; we had to rush this time, so it took a bit more out of us than it usually would."

"It's a good thing to know about nonetheless," Isaac said. "We'll have to experiment and see what we can manage when we exchange djinn."

Garet nodded his agreement and then asked, "So what did you do there, Ivan? I blinked and you were fifteen feet across the cave and had sliced up that skeleton to ribbons."

"I don't know," Ivan shrugged. "I felt a strange surge of…something…in the weapon, so I instinctively fed psynergy into it, and felt myself brimming with psynergy. The whole world except me simply slowed down and I jumped to the skeleton and slashed through it a several times and then everything sped up again."

"So your weapon has some kind of special power?" Garet asked.

"I guess so. I'm not exactly sure. If I really focus I can feel something in it, but I never understood what it meant before."

"We'll have to keep an eye out for similar weapons in the future then," Isaac suggested. "Perhaps some have the power to unleash psynergy in a special way that can be useful in combat."

The other two nodded and the three stood for a moment, digesting everything they'd learned.

"Wow. There's a lot more to all this than they ever taught us in Vale, huh?" Garet said finally.

"Yes. There are so many wonders out there," Isaac agreed. "Remember Sol Sanctum? That was amazing. I don't see how the villagers of Vale or really any city we've met could have built something like that. And the same with weapons that use psynergy. It's really quite amazing."

Garet laughed. "And I bet Kraden would be going crazy right now if he heard this conversation."

"Kraden?" Ivan asked.

"One of the people kidnapped by Saturos. You remember, don't you?"

Ivan shook his head. "I remembered the name, but no details."

"He's a scholar who studies alchemy and he came to Vale to study Sol Sanctum," Garet answered. "He taught us a lot about psynergy."

"Ah, okay," Ivan responded.

"But really, Garet, how much did you pay attention during those lessons?" Isaac teased.

"Hey, I paid attention as well as you," Garet countered hotly.

"Suuuuuuuuure you did," Ivan laughed. He then whispered loudly to Isaac, "So did he sleep in class all the time or just daydream?"

"Daydream, definitely," Garet responded dryly. "Come on, you two. Let's get on with it." He shook his head and muttered something about being ganged up on and led the way towards what Isaac now recognized as the exit of the cave.

The two laughed and followed Garet out of the cave and into the waiting cold.

~o~o~o~

Thanks go to prettypriestess for being a beta reader for this chapter.

Thanks go to the reader for reading. And even more thanks go to reviewers for reviewing. And a thousand thanks go to everyone bearing with me through this four month hiatus. I'm truly sorry about that, and I could pile excuses on here for another few paragraphs, but I doubt you care about anything more than getting the next update.

Also, somehow chapter 8 got replaced by the chapter 7 text and a bunch of formatting disappeared throughout the posted story. I have no idea how this happened (no doubt it was during one of my OCD-induced format rampages), but I've fixed it. So you should be able to read chapter 8 and all the old chapters should be properly formatted with my shiny new format that doesn't get eaten by when I upload


	12. The Extreme

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. I make no money from writing this. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Extreme

Ivan held his cloak around him closely as he followed the other two through the snow farther north. The light from the sun had been thin all day, but now it was partially concealed by the mountains to the west, making it even thinner.

"Ugh…" he muttered, shivering.

"Ivan, are you okay?" Isaac asked, turning to embrace his boyfriend.

"Just cold. I should be fine," the wind adept answered through chattering teeth as he leaned into Isaac's arms. Garet stopped a few yards ahead, watching the surrounding area intently, alert for any further attacks from the fierce creature of the north.

Breaking the hug, Isaac pulled off the coat he'd brought from Vale and put it around the younger man. "Sometimes I forget you're from farther south. You're not used to this, are you?"

Ivan shook his head, happily accepting the coat. "But you two aren't from much farther north than me. Why are you so much better off?"

Isaac laughed a bit, rubbing his hands together as the two continued to walk. "Remember: Vale was in the foothills just south of Mt. Aleph. I think we were considerably higher than where you were in Kaylay. Besides, we only got done with winter there recently."

Ivan nodded, again pulling the coat tight. "We were pretty near the Karagol Sea, as well. And not too far from the real ocean. I'm told large bodies of water like that tend to create milder winters."

The three continued north, passing to the west of a large, icy bay, making good time in the last hour of daylight they had. Based on their maps, Isaac predicted they'd be in Imil late in the next evening, making the journey through the snow almost three days.

Though the sun was below the mountains to the east, forcing the three to stop for the night, it was still early and none of the three were ready to sleep. In an effort to stay warm, Isaac and Garet sparred with some dead branches they found, fighting back and forth across the field where they'd made camp.

Nothing but firelight lit the two, and Ivan simply watched, trying to follow the two warriors' moves as they danced around the snow.

~o~

A few hours later, the three were exhausted and Garet said something about trying something out while he was on watch before walking farther off.

Isaac and Ivan laid out their bedrolls along with extra blankets close to the fire and the two lay down to sleep, Isaac noting that Ivan seemed unusually quiet.

Isaac was just settling into his blankets and getting warm when he heard Ivan's teeth chattering yet again. He forced himself to wait and not to be too paranoid, but after a few seconds, the chattering seemed to reach a crescendo.

Worried, Isaac sat up in his blankets, asking "Are you okay?"

"Uh…yes…" Ivan answered, barely audible.

Now even more concerned, Isaac sat up to look at his boyfriend. He wasn't sure what to do, as he couldn't keep giving Ivan more blankets; he needed some protection from the cold, too. Isaac racked his brain for an answer, before he finally got an answer from his nightly fantasies. Bracing himself for the cold of being out of his bedding, Isaac got up and gathered together his blankets.

"Here, let me help you out," Isaac murmured as he carried his stuff over to Ivan.

"No, you need bl-blankets, too," Ivan stuttered through his chattering teeth.

"Isaac smiled gently as he dropped the bedding beside Ivan and knelt before the younger man. "Well, I was thinking we could…share," Isaac explained.

"Sh-share?" Ivan asked. He seemed to stutter even more than earlier.

"Yes. We can share body heat," Isaac explained. "That should help you out, and it won't end up with me cold, either."

"You're asking to sleep with me?" Ivan asked, his voice suddenly full of both apprehension and longing and his eyes glazing over.

"Well, no, not really," Isaac responded with a small laugh. "We can keep our clothes on. I wouldn't do that to Garet. And we haven't really talked about…"

"Sure," Ivan interrupted, almost dreamily. "I think I'd like that."

Suddenly confused, Isaac hesitated, but then shifted Ivan's bedding a bit to make room beneath before adding his own. Grinning a bit to himself, he then slipped into the bedding besides Ivan.

And he was shocked to find the wind adept was ice-cold and Ivan was shaking so hard it was like slipping into an earthquake.

"Ivan?" Isaac asked, all romantic thoughts suddenly thrust to the back by worry.

"Oh, Isaaaaaaac…" Ivan mumbled incoherently.

"Ivan!" Isaac almost shouted while racking his brain for what could be happening to his boyfriend right next to him. He then really shouted, "Garet! GARET?"

As Isaac pushed the blankets back to get a better look, he finally recognized what was happening. Violent shivering, extremely low body heat, and confusion: hypothermia.

"Garet, I think Ivan has hypothermia and it seems really far along," Isaac explained, the worry clear in his voice. He noticed Ivan trying to pull his shirt off and grabbed his hand, recognizing yet another thing his mom had described to him those years ago before their camping trips.

"Um…I'm trying to remember what to do…" Isaac almost sobbed. "But I'm drawing a blank. I…I can't think. Do we make a hot bath? Do we have him drink warm water? I…"

"First, we calm down," Garet advised, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "And no water. We're supposed to help him get warmer more slowly than that." Garet felt Ivan's clothes. "Wet. Get him out of those wet clothes first. I'll make sure you have some dry bedding and you two should get into bed together. We'll use your body heat to help warm him up."

"Take his clothes _off_? Are you insane?" Isaac demanded.

"No. You're not thinking straight. Calm down," Garet ordered. "Take his clothes off, but keep him off the snow."

Isaac did so, trying to keep the wind adept as protected from the cold as he could manage. As he worked, he found his hands shaking almost as bad as Ivan and his boyfriend continued to murmur and flail a bit. "You'll be all right, Ivan," the Venus adept comforted, to himself as much as Ivan. "You'll be all right. I'm here." Isaac noted Garet lay down a layer of blankets just to his right and saw some steam rise from it as Garet ran his hands over the cloth.

When he finally had Ivan stripped down to his underwear, the fire adept nodded at him and the two pulled back the blankets. They then carefully lifted Ivan over onto the dry sheets.

"So should I just lay with him then?" Isaac asked, his mind still not fully there as he watched Ivan shaking while briefly exposed to more cold.

"Um…I'm a bit unclear, but I think you should strip down, too," Garet said. "Direct, skin-on-skin contact is the best."

Isaac only nodded, not trusting himself to argue, and quickly undressed himself, watching Ivan shiver even more. Garet turned to the other blankets and began to dry them out, too.

Now all but naked, Isaac dropped down onto the blanket and grabbed hold of the shivering Ivan tightly. He then felt warm, dry blankets thrown on him.

"Thanks, Garet," Isaac said, squeezing his boyfriend as if it was he, not Ivan who was facing a brush with death. The feeling was something like embracing a snowman.

"Don't worry about it," Garet responded, draping more blankets over the two. "Just keep close to him and tell me any changes."

Isaac nodded and caressed the blond haired adept he held. He felt the cold seep into himself and shivered slightly with a smile, knowing that meant warmth was seeping into Ivan.

Almost two hours passed with Isaac fighting sleep the whole time, but he noticed Ivan shaking less and less as time went on.

"He's still a bit cold, but I don't think he's shivering anymore," Isaac reported, after about a dozen times of reporting decreased shivering.

"Good," Garet responded with a sigh.

"Thanks, Garet. Thank you so much for not panicking," Isaac yawned. But something itched at the back of his mind. "But Garet… Isn't it frostbite, not hypothermia where you're suppose to warm them up with skin-to-skin contact?"

Furrowing his brow, Garet thought for a bit. "Um…you might be right… But I'm pretty sure it was both."

Isaac grinned. "Even when one of us is at the edge of death, you're trying to push the relationship along?" he chuckled.

"No!" Garet answered indignantly. "You think I'm thinking about matchmaking when my best friend's boyfriend, who also happens to be my friend, is dying?"

Still laughing, Isaac rebutted, "Sorry, but this is coming from the guy who was playing matchmaker while we're planning a trip into a forest where we were to face a curse that could turn us into trees."

"That was different," Garet countered, but then seemed to give up. "Whatever. Just try to get some sleep. I'll need to sleep in the morning for a few hours at least, which puts us a bit behind, but we'll hopefully be able to catch up and arrive in Imil the morning after tomorrow."

With a yawn, Isaac agreed, and finally settled down to sleep, holding the now calmer Ivan close.

~o~

The next morning, Isaac felt movement in the sheets with him. Still wondering if he was dreaming, he squeezed his boyfriend against him and felt the other respond. A small gust of cold sneaked through the blankets, and it jolted him fully awake. The first thing he saw was a pair of beautiful purple eyes smiling at him.

"So then," Ivan begun with humor in his voice. "To what do I owe this surprise?"

"Um…you were sick and I…um… This can be explained," Isaac stammered. He had no idea how Ivan would take waking up with both of them seemingly naked in bed without any memory of it.

And to Isaac's worst fears, his boyfriend's face grew stern. "You know, if you want to have sex _that _bad, you don't have to get me drunk, right?"

Horrified, Isaac started to say, "Ivan, I…"

But he was interrupted by a roaring laugh from Garet, who was sitting on the ground a few feet away. To which, Ivan responded with his own wonderful laugh and pulled a confounded Isaac into a tight hug.

"Oh…priceless," Garet said before bursting into laughter again.

"Not funny," Isaac told Garet with a glare as he pushed Ivan away.

"Hey, I had to get revenge for your comments last night," Garet chuckled.

Ivan, too, was still grinning, but as Isaac glared at him, it softened and he gave a more apologetic smile while explaining, "I woke up first and Garet explained what had happened. And I figured there could be no harm in playing just a small joke on you."

"Fine, fine," Isaac responded, softening his look. "As if I could get mad at you for something like that." He sat up out of the bed, rubbing his arms against the cold, and grabbed some clothes to put on. He noted that Garet had dried out his pack and the anger left from the prank faded away and saw that Garet had done the same for Ivan, who was also now quickly dressing.

"Thanks, Garet" Isaac said with a nod. "I'm sure we could all do with dryer clothes, given what happened last night."

"I figured I might as well do something while you two slept," the fire adept answered and then yawned. "And I think it's about time I get some sleep. Give me a good four or so hours and then let's get on the road. If we hurry, we can be at Imil before dawn tomorrow."

"That'd be good," Ivan commented. "Sleep well."

Now in his own bedroll with most of the other blankets, Garet only answered with a giant yawn before rolling over and he seemed to be asleep almost instantly.

Isaac turned to Ivan and asked with a grin, "So what shall we do with our four hours alone?"

Ivan laughed slightly and blushed, leaving Isaac a bit confused. "Well…actually… Half the reason I agreed to Garet's joke is that that it set me up to ask the next great question in a relationship: what about sex?"

~o~o~o~

No, I'm not dead. And I swear, the universe just wants this fic to die. I finally manage an update over spring break, and I hit the upload error that's plagued the site for the past few days. Thanks go to all the people sharing the workaround for allowing me to upload this now.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for reviewing. I've already begun work on the next chapter, so you might actually get a reasonable update. And really, I'd feel terrible if I left such a cliffhanger hanging for too long.


	13. The Answer

I do not own Golden Sun. It belongs to Camelot, Nintendo, and its other respective owners. I make no money from writing this. This story focuses on a gay pairing and includes minor straight pairings, so don't read if you don't want to. It's also rated M because of some later chapters I have in mind, so don't read if you're not supposed to.

~o~o~o~

The Answer

"Wait. _What_?" Isaac asked, sure he didn't just hear what he thought he'd just heard.

"What about sex?" Ivan repeated, sitting down on their bedding and indicating a spot opposite him.

"Ivan, you don't just… I mean… Well…" Isaac stammered, thrown completely off-guard as he joined his boyfriend, the two of them sitting cross-legged, facing each other.

Ivan laughed. "What? Is that too forward? How are you supposed to do it then?"

"Well… I, uh… I'm not entirely sure," Isaac responded. Somehow his face managed to feel hot, despite the cold. "But certainly not like that."

"Isaac, I'm a male teenager. You're a male teenager," the wind adept explained matter-of-factly. "No one needs mind reading capabilities to know exactly what's going on in both our minds roughly ninety percent of the time."

"Saving the world?" Isaac asked dryly and Ivan responded by rolling his eyes.

"Well, that's what's on my mind," Isaac stated flatly.

Ivan raised an eyebrow.

"…most of the time…" Isaac finished, knowing he'd otherwise be caught in a lie. And a lie that the wind adept could potentially call him on.

"Uh-huh," Ivan answered, satisfied. "So… What are your thoughts on this?"

"I'm not sure…I haven't really thought about it," Isaac responded. And it was the truth. Sure, Ivan was entirely right about the thing that dominated his mind and dreams. And sure, he'd thought about it, but after that first night, it had always been off in the future. Just a distant dream. He had just assumed that the nature of their journey would prevent them from such things.

"Well, what do you have to say about it?" Isaac asked, hoping to buy some time to mull things over.

Ivan tilted his head a bit, considering. "Well, I have thought about it, especially since that first night, back in Bilibin," he explained slowly. "And honestly, I'm not sure why we should wait at this point. I mean, perhaps it would be good to…well, I don't know if "ask" is the right word, but Garet should have some kind of input, I guess. Point is: it's not like we just barely met. It's been a few weeks now and we're with each other almost constantly."

"So you're not someone who wants to wait until we're settled down and all that?" Isaac wondered, preferring to ask questions rather than be put on the spot. "Not that I am," he then added hastily.

"You mean wait for marriage?" Ivan asked. "Of course not. It's possible to be safe without it, especially with our lack of…experience. Besides, I never had much confidence in being able to marry in Kaylay anyway. And sex is part of love; I'm not about to deny that part of it because it makes some people uncomfortable." Then Ivan stopped. "Wait, are you a virgin?"

Isaac felt himself blush again. "Ivan, you are the master of making things awkward, even in a relationship!"

"Well, I refuse to be like every other silly teenager and just leave such things unsaid," Ivan explained. He then grinned at Isaac. "And I noticed the dodge, by the way. I am."

"Yes, yes. I'm a virgin. What did you expect?" Isaac responded, still not quite believing he was having this conversation. "So what exactly are you proposing?"

"I'm not saying we should drop our pants and just go at it right here," Ivan responded and Isaac winced at the forwardness. Ivan sighed. "Do we really need to beat around the bush?"

"I'm just not used to…well, that," Isaac explained. "I was raised in a small town, after all. Sure, there was experimentation, but stuff of that nature was usually just left unsaid. Generally, everyone knew roughly what was going on with others without having to say it out loud."

"Ah…" Ivan acknowledged thoughtfully. "It's quite different in Kaylay. Even the younger people don't escape the gossip of large towns, and sometimes you just have to say things straight-up. And it didn't help that all the sailors…well, you get the idea, I'm sure." Ivan smiled.

Isaac shook his head, a bit overwhelmed by yet another new aspect of Ivan. Back when he had first met this quiet, young man, he never would have suspected him to be so mature and forthright when it came to this.

"Okay…serious face," Ivan told himself, and Isaac saw the laughter go out of his eyes, though with recognizable effort. "I'm ready to take the relationship farther, Isaac, though we'll probably have to wait for an inn. What about you?"

"Well, I never expected…" Isaac started, still unsure. He looked into Ivan's eyes. Those wonderful, deep, violet eyes. They weren't demanding or begging. Just asking. Respectfully. Isaac heaved a sigh and shook his head, waving away his doubts. "Sure, Ivan. I suppose we can get a room together next time and…see what happens." The earth adept smiled.

Ivan nodded. He then grinned mischievously. "Hopefully we can find the right supplies in Imil for such…activities."

Isaac felt another blush coming on, but he figured he shouldn't hide it. "Well…actually… I have what…well…yeah…"

"Oh."

For the first time in this conversation, Ivan seemed surprised, which just made Isaac blush even more.

"So we won't have to go shopping for things that require …discretion," Isaac finished, fighting down his blush.

Ivan grinned reassuringly. "Well, that takes care of that conversation."

Isaac shook away his embarrassment. "You know, you could have made that a lot easier on both of us," he pointed out.

"Well, I didn't intend that to be painful…" Ivan apologized. "I just always figured being forward would keep us from awkwardly dancing around. I guess my solution wasn't much better… I am new at this."

"It's okay, Ivan," Isaac soothed, happy to be done with the awkwardness. "It did make the conversation go faster, I guess," he then added with a laugh.

The two maneuvered to cuddle together, careful to stay off the snow, and for a time, they simply snuggled, enjoying their shared warmth.

~o~

After Garet's nap, the three adepts continued north, knowing that they'd be able to reach Imil the following morning. The cold got even harsher as they travelled north, if that was possible. The wind bit at their exposed skin like a thousand knives and from experience, they knew the cold was just as dangerous as the monsters they fought.

As night begun to fall, they found a small group of trees, alone on the icy plains. Wanting every bit of shelter they could get, the three immediately set up camp, giving them more protection than they'd had the previous few nights.

As they set up camp, Ivan recalled something he'd meant to ask after Garet's explanation of the night he'd gotten hypothermia.

"Isaac, why couldn't you just use psynergy to heal me when I got hypothermia?" he asked.

"Healing doesn't work quite like that," Isaac explained. "It varies depending on the element, so perhaps fire-based healing could, but my abilities can't handle that sort of thing. It can knit cuts or other bodily damage back together, help the body replace lost blood, and can help cure minor fatigue and shock. But against a disease like the flu or a specific condition like hypothermia or heat stroke, I can't do much."

Ivan nodded as he arranged the blankets keeping his bedroll warmer. He then yawned, "I wonder if there's any form of wind psynergy that can heal."

"Maybe…" Isaac answered, watching the other two begin to sleep as he begun the first watch of the night.

~o~

The sun was only just peeking above the ocean to the east when the three adepts finally reached Imil.

"Okay. We need to find out if Saturos and Menardi are here and how far behind we are," Isaac explained as they passed through the town gates. "I'll check the inn and look into getting us rooms. Ivan, I want you to…wait, do you hear that?"

Isaac stopped in front of the first house in the village. There was a loud, racking coughing coming from inside. The three only exchanged a brief glance before rushing to the house. The found the door unlocked and entered to find an older man falling to the ground in a coughing fit, while his wife ran to his side.

"No, no, no…" the woman cried as she tried to help her husband stand and the three adepts ran forward to help. Isaac and Garet grabbed the man under his arms and helped him over to the bed while Ivan attempted to comfort the now crying woman.

"Get Mia…" the woman begged as Ivan guided her to her husband's side at the bed. "Please, get Mia from the sanctum!"

"Where is it?" Isaac asked, as he pulled the covers over the man.

"To the west, across the river," the woman answered, sobbing, sinking into a chair that Ivan had pulled forward for her.

"We will," Isaac intoned, trying to sound reassuring and nodded at the other two before rushing out of the house.

The three rushed west. "I'm guessing that's one of the things that you can't heal?" Ivan asked as they ran.

"Yes, that's one of the –" but Isaac's explanation was cut short as he felt his feet fly out from underneath him. He felt himself slide forward and heard the other two slip behind him.

The next thing Isaac knew, he was piled up with Ivan at the far side of the river and Garet was nowhere to be seen. The two jumped up and silently agreed to continue on to the sanctum before figuring out what happened to Garet. It was only a bit farther and the two burst in to find nothing but a pair of children.

"We need Mia now!" Isaac panted. "An elderly man near the entrance is very sick and –"

"She's already gone," the young girl interrupted, sounding concerned, but calm. "You must have missed her on the way here somehow. She'll get there in time; Mia's very experienced at handling the epidemics we see this time of year." The young girl was surprisingly mature for her age. "If you want to help, you should head back to that house; Mia should be there."

"Okay. We will," Isaac answered, being the first one of the two to catch his breath from the run.

The girl nodded, and turned back to the other child and the two returned to their work with something that looked like grinding herbs.

Isaac led the way out and turned to Ivan, asking "Now that we know Mia is there to help, do you know what happened to Garet?"

"I'm not sure how, but he managed to slip sideways and I last saw him slipping up towards the source of the river," Ivan explained. "I'm not sure where he's going to end up, but we should see if we can find him."

Isaac nodded and the two headed back to the river to see what they could find. They were surprised to see Garet slipping and sliding his way back towards them from farther upstream on the frozen river.

"So I found a djinni," Garet explained as he slid towards them. At first, Isaac was impressed by the fire adept's balance. But then, true to form, Garet fell and slid the last few feet towards them flat on his butt.

"Ow," he commented as he stood, rubbing the sore area. "Ice is not fun. But an ice cave with a djinni is worth it. Did you find Mia?"

"No, but she's already on her way," Isaac explained.

Ivan added "Let's head to the house and see if there's anything else we can do."

The three carefully crossed the river and miraculously, all three managed to stay standing all the way across.

They entered the house to find a young woman around their age with long cyan hair clothed in robes of white and sky blue.

"How are you feeling?" she gently asked the old man they'd seen and he only answered with a racking cough.

"He's been coughing for quite a while now…" the sick man's wife explained, now calmed by the healer's presence.

Nodding, Mia told the old man, "You'll feel better soon." She then held her hand out. The three adepts were stunned to see a glowing blue light fly out from her fingers, bathing the man in a blue-white light. A small, ethereal fairy figure appeared and scattered white motes of light across the bed before disappearing.

The man coughed a few more times, but finally settled down.

"How do you feel now?" Mia asked warmly.

"Much better," he answered with a sigh. He started to sit up, but Mia laid her hand on him, shaking her head.

"No, you mustn't push yourself too hard," she explained.

The woman grasped her husband's hand and looked at the healer, saying, "Thank you, Mia. I can't imagine how this village would ever manage without you." She then let out a small cough of her own.

Mia smiled and placed her hand on the woman's shoulder. "Don't mention it… You should rest in bed, too, ma'am." The woman nodded in agreement. Mia surveyed the two and, satisfied, nodded before moving towards the three watching adepts.

Surprised, she stopped short when she saw the other three standing in the doorway. "Can I help you?" she asked.

Before Isaac could say a word, the whole room was filled with a bright, brilliant light even brighter than what they'd seen before.

Mia jumped and ran to a nearby window, muttering "Was that…the lighthouse?" She sounded confused. Shaking her head, she muttered to herself, "It can't be… Only I can…"

The three glanced at each other, baffled, as she turned away from the window. Then her eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh, no… Alex!"

As she said this last word, a name Isaac recognized, Mia jumped into a run and shoved Garet to the side in her haste as she exited the building.

They heard the woman say, "Oh, thank you for your help earlier, young men. I wonder what's happening at the lighthouse."

The three only nodded before rushing after Mia.

"That was psynergy," Ivan stated as they ran.

"So she must be an adept," Garet finished.

"Yes," Isaac agreed. "She seemed to be stressed about Alex and something about the lighthouse that we're suppose to prevent being lit. She doesn't sound like she's on their side, so she may be able to help."

"Remind me who Alex is again," Ivan asked. "Like with Kraden, I remember the name not the details."

"He's one of Saturos and Menardi's allies. He helped kidnap Jenna and Kraden in Sol Sanctum," Isaac explained. "And if they have anything to do with that light we saw, then we're right behind them."

The three looked up at the lighthouse they'd seen when they had approached Imil. "At least that light wasn't the lighthouse being lit," Garet said. "I think we'd be able to see that light from here."

Isaac nodded. It felt like things were nearing the end; the three were finally catching up to Saturos and Menardi and they just needed to prevent the lighting of this lighthouse and take back the elemental stars here and now.

But for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on, he still wondered if this really was the end of their journey…

~o~o~o~

Thanks for reading. Thanks for reviewing if you have or will. Also, I swear I had this and the last chapter planned out before I read the comment about this story not containing anything deserving an M. I didn't give it an M rating for nothing; as I said, it's M for later chapters. )


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